Use a Dream-Pursuit Training Partner to Progress…at Anything.

At age 54, though pretty much retired, I decided I still had a dream. I wanted to accomplish something more. But I’d fallen into the habit so common to people with free time on their hands of doing a little of this and a little of that until I’d spent that free time and reached end of day. Worse, I’d fallen out of the habit of working hard – something that had literally defined my adult life. Without momentum and external pressure, it’s hard getting started on major endeavors that take creativity and sustained effort!

And this thing I wanted to achieve was going to require skills I’d never developed, a level of effort rivaling starting another business from scratch, and was intended to make a bigger difference in others’ lives than my own. All those considerations made the prospect of getting started even harder.

To make matters worse, I have the attention span of a goldfish. I have a middle-aged brain that’s become more comfortable with generalities and high concepts than specifics and weedy details. As a result, I’ve developed a history of coming up exciting ideas, starting things, and then abandoning them once the initial thrill of making easy progress wanes.

So the first thing I had to do was develop a process that would get me back into the habit of working toward my dream and then sustaining steady progress for the duration. Along the way, I added a second minor objective: helping at least two other people define and achieve one dream each. The first of those two is now my Dream Buddy – a phrase I’ll explain in a moment. I don’t know who the third person will be, but they’re the one for whom I wrote this blog post.

If you’re out there, and you’ve come across this parvum opus and decided you have a dream, too, I hope it helps you and that if it does, you’ll let me know how it might have helped you more. On the chance you’re still young and hungry, not old and busted, my entrepreneurial training partner (aka “Dream Buddy”) and I developed this methodology based on the acceptance that earning money (slaving for others) and direct, familial responsibilities already take at least 60-70+ hours per week; but, if you’re honest with yourself, you find a little time every day (and probably more on days off from work) for some things you truly love…and even some things you don’t.

The first part of this essay addresses figuring out one thing that will make you happier, one dream you want badly to achieve. It spends a little time examining why that’s still a dream and not yet one of your many achievements. The second part of this essay leverages that dream into becoming happier.

Feel free to read this in any order you want. There’s nothing wrong with skipping over examination into why you aren’t already happier and getting right down to changing that.

 

You do still have dreams, right? You do harbor at least one unfulfilled vision of personal joy or thrilling accomplishment that you know in your heart would move your personal happiness needle toward the green, don’t you? Take a quiet moment to think about it.

Because that’s important. If you can’t think of one SINGLE thing right now that would make you happier with your life, you should:
1) Pat yourself on the back. You’re living The Dream. Woot!
2) Either stop reading (this article holds no benefit for you) or give yourself license to daydream.

Fire up that imagination! Everybody wants SOMETHING! What do you want? Complete this sentence, right now:

“I want to…”

That word, “to,” is important. It makes your dream actionable. Without that “to,” what you’re doing is wishing. You’re tip-toeing safely around commitment. That’s no more productive than shoveling smoke. But if you “want to,” you’re framing an activity, you’re forced to use a verb, you’re building a vision you can pursue.

This can be harder than you might think. We’re almost conditioned as adults NOT to think about this stuff. Like dwelling on the lack of something your heart wants, that you know would make you happier, creates feelings of discontent? That’s crap. Discontent is only a bad thing if you resign yourself to living in that state and then begin to resent others for a decision you’ve made for yourself.

Viewed through a lens that isn’t being held by someone with an interest in manipulating you, discontent is hunger. Hunger is a motivational influence.

There’s nothing wrong with ambition, with dreaming, with harboring a hunger to grow, with wanting to seize the day and by so doing earn that satisfaction that comes from deciding where happiness lies and then striving for it. Short-sighted people might say spending time on your dreams is selfish. That’s crap, too. When you’re working toward your dreams, you’re growing; when you grow there’s more of you to share than there was before. If you think about it, the example you set for those close to you embraces values so many preach, but so few live.

Are you still here? You admit you have a dream worth pursuing? A vision for increased happiness and an example you want to set for people you love? An objective you really, honestly, hunger to achieve? Something you’re sure you want to accomplish? Awesome! Goals matter! Review your concrete, one-sentence summation of its essence in your mind.

“I want to…”

Make it simple, make it shareable. Speak your dream. Keep it in mind. Write it down if you have to (and you should). Proudly put your simple dream as the wall paper on your workstation, the lock screen on your smart phone.

Is it a good dream? Is it an honest one?

This thing must be something that, if you had it, if you achieved it, would make you happier. Or it must be something that, if removed from your life, would absolutely, positively, decrease your unhappiness. You get to a happier place by achieving things you want or eliminating things you don’t. Both are valid paths.

Apply three tests:

1) Will you know when you’ve accomplished it? Is it measurable? If not, force yourself to find a way to make it concrete. You have to know specifically what your objective is or you’ll never know if you get there! This is true even if your happiness thing is more of a journey than a destination. And, no, your dream can’t be “to be happier.” That’s too vague. Happiness is a state of mind that’s contributed to by other things, other conditions in your life. You have to name the lack of one of those things, whether tangible or intangible, right now. Do you pass test one? Great, continue. If not, back up. If your happiness is important, you dream is worth the effort to define.

2) Is your vision, this thing you want, a one-step dream, such as something you want that you already have the skills and knowledge to achieve; or are there intermediate accomplishments you’ll have to achieve on the way toward accomplishing your big dream? If so, have you made accomplishing that first step your dream and defined exactly what is? Make sure it’s the best first step that you KNOW puts you on a direct path toward achieving your big dream. Make that “I want to…” lead directly to a solid second step that’s also clearly enroute to that ultimate dream that you really, really want.

3) Is your dream, once achieved, sustainable? If it’s not, it’s not necessarily a flawed dream. But part of breathing life into your dream must involve conquering an interim step that you’ll want to include in your path toward achievement. Even dreams have logistical realities!

If you’ve focused this dream with the above steps, you now know what you want and the one most-important step you must reach for a bump up in your happiness. Say it out loud. Does it ring true? If not, start over and be more honest with yourself. Remember to articulate it as “I want to….”

What will happen when share your dream with those close to you? What do you think will happen when you share that you’re going to achieve your dream? Is the likely response going to change your mind about what you’ve just said you want for yourself? Why? If you receive negativity, what will your response be? Your odds of achieving your dreams go way up if you can be honest with yourself and those you care about, if you have the support of those around you.

Now, how do you get started and keep moving toward your objective?

There’s this long-running meme on Slashdot, a news and comment Web site frequented by people who self-identify as smart, where commenting wits will commonly boil a poorly articulated plan for success down to three easy steps:
Step 1: [State a vague goal]
Step 2: ???
Step 3: PROFIT!

The meme’s sarcastic disregard for the complexity and work required to achieve success at almost anything harkens back to an old “South Park” episode from 1998 and is often rewarded by lots of up-voting as “funny.” That’s because a dream without a plan and the dedication to pursue it is kind of a sad joke.

Of course, if working toward a dream were easy, the self-help and goal achievement industry wouldn’t be helping itself to more than $10 Billion per year in rabidly purchased, rarely consumed, usually ineffective coaching that unfortunately helps its prolific advocates more than those trying to figure out how to actually accomplish something important. Caveat emptor to those permanently stalled dream seekers.

Ultimately, if you want to achieve something and you’re starting without momentum from a previous, related success, you’re looking at a dauntingly Sisyphean undertaking. Then, when you go searching for some external guidance, some inspiration, some way to self-help yourself by your bootstraps, this is the sort of guidance you find:

“Just do it.”

“Do the work.”

“Take your turn. Dump your fear.”

“Exploding Kittens.” –okay, that last one has very little to do with self-help. But let’s be honest, this is the internet, and no search for assistance goes on for long without leading you into the Intarwebz nether regions, and thence to something like The Oatmeal to restore your morale.

Dude. Here’s the problem with self-help paradigms: If you were the kind of person who could manage dream achievement by reading simple maxims or simplistic books, you wouldn’t be the kind of person who was having problems making progress toward fulfilling your dreams. Welcome to the 99% of population where we mortals dwell. In fact, if you’re like most people, you’ve actually gone the other direction; you’ve made a habit of not working toward your dream. You’ve embraced responsibility, duty, the daily grind. You’re a good person. You’re carrying your weight. You’re taking care of others.

You’re telling yourself you’re doing those other things…instead.

You’re doing okay. Yay.

But you could be happier with your life, yourself.

Let’s do some more dream testing. Because it would be ridiculous to strive for something that will make you less happy, right?
That dream you named a few minutes ago. What was it again? Say it out loud. Remember, don’t start it with “I wish…” Start with “I want to…” Even if you want your dream, your goal, your achievement, your happiness, for you and someone else, this is about you doing something as an individual.

Examine your dream: Is it really something that would leave you happier with your life if you could accomplish it, say, in the next six months? Or if that’s not realistic, if defined as an intermediate objective whose accomplishment would carry you far enough in the right direction to make you feel really good about having arrived one step closer to your ultimate dream?
Say it again. Is this thing you want REALLY something you REALLY want? (For a second, embrace being bombarded by adverbs here.) Are you absolutely convinced that deep down you don’t see this thing you’re saying you “want” as one of those “Be careful what you wish for” things that you shouldn’t achieve after all? Because it might turn out to be a bad thing to have accomplished, leaving you unhappier or at least no more happy? Are you sure it’s not just something someone else wants you to do, that you feel duty bound to pursue because maybe you should? Because if any of those are true, screw that nonsense.

Finding a way to work toward something you don’t care about is a different article.

Actually, Part Two of this article will probably still help you with that, too, but why would you choose that over a real dream? This is about making yourself a little happier. It’s about dream achievement. That other thing isn’t a dream. It’s something else–probably more of a dream killer.

What’s your dream sentence again? Say it out loud. “I want to…”

And look, if you’ve gotten this far and you’re not completing that sentence, you should really stop. Do not pass “Go,” do not collect $200. If you have a dream, if you want something for yourself, go back to the beginning of this article and take it seriously. You need to be done with just reading about how to make progress and ready to actually begin making that progress.

So, you’re completing that sentence. Now let’s test your dream with a little adversity. Let’s rub you the wrong way.

You’ve articulated this vision whose accomplishment would make you happier with your life. If it’s really burning within your breast, you can change the “I want to…” to “I need to _____, to be happier in my life,” and have that statement ring true to the depths of your soul.

Quick, what are the biggest barriers preventing you from working toward this dream? Name two or three reasons you feel are valid reasons you aren’t making daily or at least weekly progress in the pursuit of your dream. Make them good ones!
These obstacles are important to recognize because everything you’ll ever accomplish that’s worth anything will get accomplished in spite of adversity. Because you found a way to get over, past, or through something that was in your way.
Acknowledge those things that so frustratingly keep you from achieving your dreams. Are any of them names or people or faceless organizations or oppressive responsibilities? If you’re like most, they probably are. Most people, having made choices that they’re not happy about, find a way to blame others for their discontent. But if you’re being honest with yourself, some of the things you’re thinking about are also pastimes or distractions you enjoy or at least tolerate. Things you find easier to do.

Is time your shortest resource? Most people claim that.

Try this. Name two or three or five things you do that, taken together, fill at least five hours a week, most weeks of your life. Don’t count: Work, sleeping (up to eight’ish hours a day), time spent exercising (up to an hour a day), meal times you share with others, or concrete responsibilities toward your kids and family that involve actual focused time. Those things are the Big Five. They’re sacrosanct and we won’t consider them reasons you aren’t working toward a happier, more dream-fulfilled you.

But DO count things you do for relaxation or “mental health,” or to avoid doing other things you find less fun. Count time spent watching television, going to bars with friends, reading, idly browsing the web, recreational shopping, texting friends, snap-chatting, Facebooking, and any of the myriad other things that aren’t in the Big Five, but which you spend time doing, even if only here and there as part of your day.

Here’s what that list is: five or six elective things, maybe more, that your actions indicate are more important to you than your dreams.

Really?

For each of those things, try this. Take that sentence you crafted, that you said you believed in. “I want to…” (or, by now, “I need to….”) Then go through your list of those electives you routinely grant time to. Let’s say you spend time each day scanning your Facebook newsfeed for a total of an hour (and don’t kid yourself, ten minutes here and ten minutes there add up — those ad revenues from your “quick” newsfeed scanning are why Facebook is now worth more than $200 Billion). Compare that elective time against your dream. In the above case, you would say out loud, “Scanning my Facebook news feed is more important to me than achieving my dream of…”

Of course, said out loud, that sounds ridiculous, unless your Big Dream was to find time to scan your Facebook newsfeed, and that was the single-most important thing you lacked if your life to be happier (not that there’s anything wrong with that — this is a no judgment zone…). But, really?

Alternately, let’s say you like to watch “Big Bang Theory,” or “Gray’s Anatomy.” That’s 30-60 minutes a week. Whatever that elective is, you’ve assigned some importance to it. Ask yourself why. The answer will usually boil down to, “Because it’s the least crappy choice I have to escape from other things demanding my time that I like even less.” Talk about damning with faint praise!

Even if that elective is something you enjoy, it’s still worth contrasting against that one thing you told yourself would make you happier. Anywhere you examine the sentence, “Spending time doing _______ is more important to my happiness than accomplishing my dream of ____________,” and its not true, change it to this:

I am not as happy as I could be, because of _____________________. And insert that thing you’re spending elective time doing every day, or every week. You can see what the next step is, right?

If someone came to you for help and said, “I am not as happy as I could be because I spend an hour a day scanning my Facebook newsfeed” (or “watching ‘Gray’s Anatomy'”), or “eating brownies,” what would you say (assuming you really wanted to help)?

Here’s your next step. Substitute that elective activity in the sentence above with the word, “Me.” It’s an important thing to say, to hear yourself say. But not because it’s productive to beat yourself up. It’s not.

Here’s why: Blaming others for our own dissatisfactions is the most insidious of dream killers. Do you do it? Don’t feel bad; most people do. It’s bullshit, of course, but God, it’s so easy, so comfortable! Blaming others puts a warm cozy over our chilling fears. External blame is that sheltering pair of dark sunglasses that keeps us from having to look ourselves in the eye when we stand in front of a mirror wondering why we’re not as happy as we want to be.

Return to your list of things that are stealing time away from your ability to progress toward your dream, your vision, whose accomplishment will make you happier than you are right now. Pick out one or two of the biggest time sinks. Those are your “candy” distractions. They’re your mind candy. Like sugary candy, they give you an instant fleeting bit of pleasure so awesome you willfully ignore the tiny but additive long-term detriment.

Doing this is especially important for those whose favorite excuse for not making progress toward their dream is, “I don’t have time.” It’s the number one excuse most people use, according to a study I just made up because I didn’t have the time to search for something that had been peer reviewed for validity.

Every time you read or listen to something that encourages you to point at another’s actions as a contributor to your unhappiness, you’re contributing to someone else’s dream at the cost of your own. Scanning Facebook? Congratulations, you’re contributing to Mark Zuckerberg’s dream at the cost of your own. Watching television? It’s so awesome of you to contribute to the dreams of Comcast shareholders and executives, and the dreams of the show’s producers and actors, at the cost of your own. That’s mighty grand of you.

Unless the way you’re spending your elective time is not actually making you happier (and it’s probably not).

Blaming others for our unhappiness is magical. It makes us feel better without actually doing anything!

Now you’ve identified your dream, tested it so you know it’s YOUR dream and not some half-baked adoption of someone else’s dream for you that you don’t really care about. You’ve proven to yourself that you do indeed have time available in your day when you could be working toward your dream, your increased happiness.

Are you set to achieve it yet? Hell no!

If it was that easy, more people would be working toward and reaching their dreams instead of constantly searching for new and novel ways to idle their hours away. But take heart, when it comes to problem solving, most people bolo (fail) on the first step: Identifying the problem. You’ve gotten past that and gone even further. But you’re still at risk of stalling and reverting back to the lack of momentum that causes dreams to grow old, die, and be abandoned.

The hardest steps are the next two: Getting started, and keeping your momentum. If you can do that, you can do the work. If you do the work, you will make progress toward your dream’s achievement. Just doing that bumps most people’s level of happiness. But let’s focus on how you’ll actually bring your dream achievement about.

Part Two: Find A Boss, Be A Boss!

People who exercise know that having a dedicated, supportive, workout buddy vastly increases your success at starting and stick with a fitness program.

The same applies when it comes to the path toward dream achievement. So you’re going to find your intellectual or entrepreneurial or visionary dream buddy. This is what you’re looking for:

• Someone who is not your spouse or significant other.
• Someone who’ll be reliable, and that you will be reliable to right back.
• Someone who is not a good friend, or such a good friend that you can
  • Talk straight, unvarnished, truths to,
  • Hit with hard judgments without having to sugarcoat them,
  • Take hard judgments from, and
  • Accept and enforce standards you agree upon.

Ideally you will find someone who has their own dream and determination that matches or exceeds your own.

You’re going to form an agreement with this person. Not only are you going to agree to hold yourself accountable, you’re going to agree to hold each other accountable. And when it comes to performance evaluations, you’re going to treat the other person like they are your boss. They’re a boss who has your best interests at heart, but a boss nonetheless. They are someone you must not let down.

You’re going to meet or conference with this person at least once, ideally twice per week. If you meet twice a week, you set and commit to your week’s objectives on Mondays, and you have your status meeting to go over the commitments you met on Friday’s. You can pick other days, of course, but leave a couple days out, sort of like a “weekend,” which you retain for elective time, or to catch up if you’ve failed at accomplishing one of your weekly objectives. You’ll be surprised, now that you’ve finally begun to OWN your dream, how often you find yourself using those two “free” days to make even more progress. And how good that will make you feel on Monday when you meet to set the next week’s goals.

Important: You will NOT let other crap supersede your meetings. If something unavoidable comes up, you will both reschedule for a date and time as soon as possible, and then get right back on schedule. You owe it to your Dream Buddy to be a good boss and they owe it to you. Look each other dead in the eye, acknowledge the importance of the responsibility each of you has to the other, and affirm it every meeting.

Next, you’re going to enlist a support group, whom you can depend on to cheer you on. These can be family members, Facebook friends, or some other group. You’re going to ask them to help, and you’re going to update them with your progress.

You’ve now “hired” one person to help you set and reach your goals, week by week, and keep you grounded, and hold you accountable. Ideally, you’ll be doing the same for them, which you’ll find also feels pretty damned good. And you’ve recruited a group of cheerleaders, who’ll be cheering for you. They’ll also be inspired by you, and that’ll feel pretty good too.

Just as importantly, you are committing to feel shame when you report a lack of progress to them, because if it happens, it will be reported without excuses. This is one of the reasons pursuing a dream takes courage, but you have that in you.

If you and your dream buddy meet on Mondays and Fridays, you’re going to publish your week’s objectives as promises to your cheerleaders, and you’re going to provide them with a bullet-point status update on Friday to show your progress – and collect your accolades.

This methodology works even for people who’re fundamentally lazy, only mildly creative, not particularly sociable, and have years of having a hard time self-starting. If this process will work for them, it can work for you.

Start With This Framework

First meeting:

• Set meeting days, frequency and format. You and your Dream Buddy will pick a “Commitment Day” for the start of each week and a “Status Reporting” day at the end of each week.
• Identify and commit to accountability level.
• Psychologically, commit to thinking of the other person as your Boss when you’re creating, working toward, and briefing the status of your progression. They will do the same for you.
• Identify your project, your Dream.
• Define the problem: What’s keeping you from your dream? Articulate your dream achievement steps. If it is a long-term or complex path, or requires multi-step, interim successes, break your dream down into 4-6 month chunks of well-defined effort, each of which are on your critical path to ultimate dream accomplishment.
• Make sure you validate your Dream Buddy’s dream.
• Define concrete success criteria for the most immediate (4-6 month) objective. If possible, identify external tests that can validate your personal success.
• If your dream is complex or your path toward your first objective is not clear, bring three possible courses of action that you (and others whose opinions you admire) decide have the best possibility of success and will best move you one step closer to achieving your dream. Hash these out with your Dream Buddy and your cheerleaders, then pick the best course of action. That is your immediate dream.
• Discuss resources, limitations, and constraints within which your work must be addressed, at least for the forthcoming months (or quarters). This is your reality check. No pipe dreams allowed, because this is something you’re really going to achieve.

Discuss how you will set priorities when you have multiple tasks you will be working on in any given week.

Employ some “combative creativity” with your Dream Buddy to test your prioritization. Combative creativity is like the opposite of brain-storming. You want your Dream Buddy to test your statements, to play devil’s advocate, to name obstacles or call out wishful thinking. Only the soundest and strongest ideas and the achievable declarations should survive. The goal is to ensure your priorities are on the critical path toward dream accomplishment. You do this because it’s very easy to assign priority to comfortable, easy, or more-fun tasks, rather than the less enjoyable or scarier tasks that may be better uses of your time.

The job of the Dream Buddy is to keep the other person tracking along the most productive, best path toward accomplishing their objectives.

Identify and record quantifiable measurements that will provide progress validation. To know whether you’re being successful, you have to have first correctly identified your objective, and then you need objective, externally-verifiable measurements that can be applied to milestones or progress.

Optional: Discuss and decide on the tools you will use for task or project management. They don’t have to be fancy, but they do have to support recording, sharing, and progress/completion of tasks. It can be very helpful if your tools are always available (desktop + mobile access), as that can extend your productivity envelope if your objective is something you can work against regardless of location.

For some objectives, Outlook or a simple notepad are perfectly acceptable task management tools. Evernote also works for simple task and project management, though it’s not purpose-built for it (with the bonus that Evernote is awesome for lots of other information storage, too).

For larger projects, Fog Creek Software has some great, affordable tools, like FogBugz (originally bug tracking but can also be used for task management) or Trello (project management). However, don’t let the search for the perfect dream management software distract you from your true, immediate objectives, and don’t pick a tool that’s going to take too much time to learn. You have better things to do with your valuable time!

On Commitment Day, each week:

• At least three hours before the meeting, send your project-specific items for discussion and your commitments for the week to your Dream Buddy.

At the meeting:

• Spend a little time in free-ranging discussion of things you’ve read or heard that you find interesting and worth exploring, especially as they relate to your (or your buddy’s) dream. You might highlight or debate issues of the day. Stimulating ideas or conundrums. These help get your creative pumps primed.
• Name/review the top over-arching challenges or goals that this week’s tasks support or develop and how they relate to your overall Dream. You may continue to refine these as conditions change or your dream evolves.
• Take feedback from your Dream Buddy, you training partner. If applicable incorporate changes in the market (if you’re developing a business-related dream), interim research, or other developments in your life or elsewhere.
• Define this week’s missions to be accomplished (concrete progress that will be made, or tasks that will be completed).
• Define (or discuss changes as to) why these are important.
• Evaluate and validate these priorities on a week-to-week basis, and affirm criticality of tasks.
• Forecast addressable obstacles and discuss resolution to the extent possible.
• Identify unsecured resources required for success. Address how those will be reduced or secured to allow the progress to which you’re committing.
• Make commitment to level of dedicated effort for the week. Forecast how much work you will do; what time you will dedicate to bring about The Vision, the Dream.

As a Dream Buddy at this meeting, your job is to guide, coach, and encourage. It is also to vet the other person’s priorities and time management to keep them tracking against their dream. You’re a Boss!

On Status Report day:

• Pre-meeting discussions: Issues of the day. Stimulating ideas or conundrums. These help get the creative pumps primed.
• Report on the overall degree of success you achieved toward Doing The Work (committed to on Commitment Day).
• Report the progress you made; what tasks did you complete?
• Report where you fell short, or where are you fell behind schedule, and why.
  • For every item, state your plan for fixing that failure. Articulate how your plan will reduce the chances for this same kind of future failure.
  • When you’re falling short of your expressed objectives, lay out targeted issues killing your momentum, so you and your dream buddy can mull over possible solutions.
  • Set unresolved or unanswered reasons for specific failures as an agenda item for volleying ideas back and forth on the next Commitment Day, so you both develop thoughts for brainstorming / problem-solving your obstacles.
  • Identify external dependencies that will impact the coming week’s (or weeks’) progress, and commit to managing those in advance.

End of Month Dream Review Meeting:

Post mortem for the month: How did you do? What were your noteworthy successes? What were the failures?

You are making progress toward your dream. Discuss how that’s making you feel. Discuss how that’s changing your behavior. Many people find themselves needing less mindless-vegetable or “mental health” elective down time, because they’re more energized. When you discover this happening, bring it up with your Dream Buddy. Build that mutually supporting enthusiasm for where you’re going with your life. Strengthen your hunger for your dream!

If you feel the need, discuss or propose refinement or evolution of this process, reach agreement with your Dream Buddy, get commitment, document your mutual decisions, then use them going forward. You’re not constrained to this process if there’s another approach that will work better.

Be generous, but do not sacrifice accountability.

Did you make as much progress against the over-arching objective(s) as you should have this month? Where the answer is “No,” what are the concrete actions you will take immediately to ensure your performance next month improves and how will you measure it?

How much closer are you to your dream? Celebrate the approach of that achievement!

I hope this helps you. Remember: The person who says they can and the person who says they can’t are both right.