the 3 most important things to do today to achieve your dreams

What are the 3 most important things to do today to achieve your dreams?

They're surprisingly easy.

1. Take action
2. Learn from it
3. Be creative

1. Take action

When it comes to so many things, we know have to take small steps to achieve our goals. For example, if you want to become a professional golfer, you need to start playing golf. If you want to play the piano, you need to start practicing. It sounds obvious, doesn't it? In our hobbies and sports - even in our relationships - we understand that we have to take one small step at a time.

Yet when it comes to starting our own business, changing career, writing a book, etc, we are hesitant to make a start.
We feel we need all the answers before taking action.
We worry that failure will make us look silly.
We hope for a tattslotto win so we can start doing the work we love.
We look forward to retirement so we can start doing the things we love.
We delay, delay, delay.

Yet without taking action, our work dreams will always stay in the future.
We stay in jobs where we are frustrated, then when we reach boiling point, we try and find another job that we hope will suit us better. Until we get frustrated again.

Yet if we invested time in understanding what type of work makes our heart sing, what type of work allows us to be ourselves, and what type of work allows us to use our strengths every day, we could then take intentional steps towards our dreams.

We don’t have to have the best ideas in the world. We just need to make a start and take action. Start a blog. Start your book. Write an article. Make a video.

Which leads me to the next important thing. That action must be accompanied by the ability to learn…

2. Learn from action

If you talk to successful business people, many of them have stories of the companies they started and abandoned before their current success.
Tony Nash of Booktopia used to have an internet SEO company (Search engine optimization).
Janine Allis started Sejuice before she started Boost. She also started a salad bar (Tossers) that she abandoned.

Is this failure? Or is it the ability to learn?

The first thing to do is to take action. The next thing to do is to learn from it.
There is no magic formula for success. There is action. And there is learning.

There are so many opportunities to learn these days. For example, I can post this post on LinkedIn, and then I can see how many people view it, and how many people like it. This post that I liked, no-one else liked! (perhaps the weight-loss analogy made it an awkward thing for people to ‘like’ as it comes up in their feed—maybe it was just bad!). My most viewed and liked post was this one. The backend of my blog allows me to see whether traffic to my website increased as a result of posting this on Linkedin (or Facebook). Technology provides so many learning opportunities.

Customer feedback also provides an excellent learning opportunity if you’re willing to listen. Founder of Boost Juice, Janine Allis, in her book The Secrets of My Success, talks about how she always responds to customer feedback within 24 hours.

Learning can also help you understand what motivates you to take action. Have you been procrastinating about something? What strengths do you have to help you take action? For me, helping others always motivates me. I had an important action on my to-do list for quite a while but other things always took priority. Then a friend needed it, and that motivated me. Also, a commitment always motivates me. If I commit to writing a post once a week, I feel I have let myself down if I don’t do it. Observe yourself and learn how to keep yourself motivated to take action.

Listening goes hand in hand with learning. If you don’t listen, you won’t learn. I love watching Shark Tank and seeing the ‘Sharks’ get annoyed with the people who don’t listen.

3. Be creative

The third important thing to do today is to be creative. When we are young, we embrace our creativity. Yet, as adults, we are quick to say ‘I am not creative’. Creativity can be defined as “the use of imagination or original ideas to create something” or “a phenomenon whereby something new and in some way valuable is created.” Creativity is essential in achieving your dreams.

If you want to make a living doing what you love, you need to start with many ideas. Then take action. And learn from it.
James Altucher talks about writing down 10 ideas every day. The ideas may be good or bad; the point is to exercise your creativity. Write 10 problems you want to solve. 10 businesses you want to help. 10 ways to make a living from .. (insert your interests here.. sailing? writing? reading?). 10 things people ask you for help with. 10 ways you deliver value in your current role.

And then take action. And then learn from it.

And then begin again. Generate ideas. Take action. Learn from it.

That’s it.

Oh, and one more thing to do today to achieve your dreams —sign up to my newsletter at the top of this page www.findmyniche.com.au!

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