I am sure you have heard that the things that bring us the most happiness is the pursuit of our dreams? Yet, so few of us, when asked, can produce anything that resembles a list of dreams. While many of us saw the movie the Bucket List or movies or TV shows that resemble it, we have yet to sit down and write out our own bucket list. If we did I am fairly certain like most of the rest of the world, soon after we jotted it down we set it aside and promptly forgot about it.
Have you ever written down your bucket list?
When I counsel couples, one of the first things I invite them to do in my presence, is to go to seperate areas, spend twenty to thirty minutes and write down ten or twenty things that they would like to have, do, be or become over the next five or ten years. No limitations. Just dreams. I invite you to do that same thing right now. Write down ten or twenty things you would like to have, do, be, or become over the next five or ten years. Or are you like so many and say, I know what those things are. I don’t need to write them down. Now then, I DARE you to write them down right now.
If you did I applaud you. But I will applaud you even more if you go outside of your own comfort zone in order to grow. I have known people that lived most of their lives just living their lives and not going beyond what their own thoughts and wishes were. I know, sounds silly doesn’t it? Why would I want to go beyiond what I want, Steve?
Here is one of hundreds of stories I have listened to and documented over the last eight years of my life.
I was working in a very nice medium sized town in middle America. I was making an okay living. I was living a very nice life. Wishing I had more. Wishing I could get more. Wishing I could be more. Always trying to exceed expectations and find the so called ‘good life’ in my own back yard. Then a few things happened and my life changed. I was forced to make those changes. I lost my job and put my resume out on the internet.
I had told my friends and family for decades that I would never want to live in a big city. Told them I didn’t understand why anyone would live that way. Fighting traffic, fighting long lines in busy cities. Struggling to be noticed. And then I got hired into Atlanta, Georgia for a very nice salary. Who am I kidding. It was a great salary. And I was forced to move to a big city. What I had been telling people for my whole life was now upended and I found out, completely wrong.
I loved the metropolitan area. I loved the different restaurants, the entertainment choices, the recreational opportunities. I loved the big city.
I have since also found that I love traveling because along with the big city came greater opportunities financially as well as career choices. And with each step came greater satisfaction. I also found out you do not have to live ‘in’ the big city in order to take advantage of all of the things the big city offers.
I also learned that I said I would never eat a certain menu or live a certain lifestyle. Why would anyone want to eat sushi or vegetarian. Why would they want to spend $100 a plate to eat at those restaurants.
And I also learned that in order to be good at something you have to excel at many other things. That to be good at something you love you might have to be great at many of the peripheral things that will help to make you good at the thing you love. Or the thing that you wanted to be good at.
What I am hoping to see in this post is that if you are limiting yourself simply by saying, I don’t know why anyone would want to …. go ahead, finish that sentence. I dare you.
If you are limiting yourself by that simple phrase, that you stop, take an inward look and then ask it a different way. I wonder, why it is that I don’t want to … and see if many of your beliefs are limiting your lifestyle, your dreams.
And I encourage you to speak what you want into your life by becoming a person who instead of asking why would I want to… instead you ask, why would I not want to …
Go ahead. See if your bucket list, your written down dreams, don’t absolutely come true simply because you dared to believe you could ….
I am Steve Sapato from mentalprosperityblog.com and you can reach me at steve@stevesapato.com
