A close friend of mine, unlike other people, was always focused on achieving her dream. She wanted to become a fashion designer and wanted to see her clothes displayed on the ramp during the fashion week. She was inspired and passionate about it. It was one of the many things that I was found attractive about her. She walked the distance to achieve her dream. She graduated from National Institute of Fashion Technology at the top of her class. She worked with top designers in the country like Neeta Lulla and Malini Agrawal to get hands-on experience in the fashion industry. When she felt she had enough experience, she even launched her startup. Unfortunately, the startup did not succeed to the extent she would have liked. After marriage and a child, she shifted tracks. She now works for a top retailer in the country and has successfully developed one of its failing fashion categories. Her hard work and creativity as a designer has been recognised and rewarded within the company. However, her dream of making her own fashion brand has been forgotten.

If you asked if she had followed her dreams, she would simply point out that she was a very respected fashion designer in a big retail chain. She would acknowledge the fact that she compromised on her dream, she would rationalize her decision instead.

“Dreams don’t die a natural death, we kill them and our weapons are rationalisations we use to murder them.”

Rationalisation used to Procrastinate

1. I am going to work on my dreams…just not tonight.
2. There isn’t enough time
3. There isn’t enough money
4. I don’t have enough expertise
5. The industry is shit!
6. I need the security
7. I will do this one thing before working on my dream

Like every other ‘killing’ there is a motive behind this crime. Our motivations for these rationalizations become clear when we scratch beneath the surface.

1. We want to be comfortable. Comfort is a far bigger dream killer than fear.
2. Next is, of course, the fear of failure.
3. Lack of patience
4. Fear of taking risks
5. Loss of faith in oneself

And many others follow. The primary reason is always comfort and a lack of patience.

The myth of ‘sacrifices’

While sacrifices have to be made in the real world to achieve our goals. Not everyone has to make them. This myth created by the media and films often shows the protagonist sticking to his dreams against insurmountable odds. This not required in the real world. The real-world needs you to nurture your dreams and believe in yourself. Dreams take a long time to realize and you need rational strategies to keep yourself going in the direction that you choose.

Here are a few strategies to keep your dream alive.

1. Make a Dream Task sheet

Like every other work you do for your home and your office, you need a daily task sheet to achieve your dreams. The famous comic Seinfeld made it a habit to write 100 words daily. It did not matter if they were good or bad. Just write 100 words every day. You need similar, simple goals to stay in touch with your dreams.

2. Follow the latest trends online

Staying connected to your field online is the best way to keep your dream alive. This allows you to meet people who are in the same situation as you and allows you to explore the field of your choice at your pace.

3. Bring it in your conversation.

Let’s say you took up the job because you wanted some financial stability. It is important not to forget your dreams in the comfort of a steady paycheck. It is important then keep talking about your passion and keep in touch with that inner curiosity. Who knows you might someone at your workplace who shares your interest. These people become your link to your inner voice.

4. Understand that it takes time

To excel at something requires patience and dedication. If you are patient with yourself you will find the dedication to do the same thing again and again till you get it right.

5. Little bit everyday

Realization of your dreams is a long process. This means you don’t have to achieve the whole thing in one big leap. You just need to take one step every day for many years to achieve that dream. So think about the one step you have to take today and everything else will fall in place.

These four simple strategies will keep you on track even if the circumstances in your life are not ideal for the pursuit of your dreams. The important thing is to keep at it. Nurture your dreams every day like you nurture a tree or a plant. Wait patiently without complaining and watch as your efforts bear fruit. Don’t kill your dreams with petty rationalizations give them alive with your dedication.

Often people resist the change, and this change is not the organisational or a technological change, it’s the change within, many a times I have heard people saying I have been like this since my childhood or all of my friends in my life have accepted me like this or my behaviour is same as it was in my last organisation even say the dressing is not important have been dressed like this since so many years and everyone has accepted.

Does everyone really accept you the way you are? Or is it a myth?

If you live in desert and you travel to snow world, will you really wear the same cloth or behave and eat same as you were doing when you were in desert- the answer would be a BIG NO, same is the case in life, when we move from one city to another, one organisation to another one friend circle to another, it’s a call for a change, and if you will not change yourself you will definitely face the challenges of acceptance.

The solution is wearing a different coat for different situation, and when I say coat- it’s the behaviour or ‘personality’ and not your character. You need a different personality for your friends, your organisation, for your team, for your clients for your professional life and for your personal life.

The most important thing here is to accept that it’s time to change or it’s a call to wear a different personality.

When I suggest a change to your personality, I mean the external elements, mostly. You chore values and beliefs need not change. The best example of this is when you change your job and go to a new organisation. You have to adapt to the tone of your new organisation otherwise the office culture will reject you. However, your work ethic itself will remain the same.

Then there is the concept of signature style. This has to be cultivated over a long period of time. The best example of ‘signature style’ is Ranveer Singh. He carries himself in a particular manner with particular grace. People sometimes comment on his dressing sense and his behaviour. However, he does not care.

You also need proper guidance to create a signature style. After all even your personal style needs to tailor itself to an event.

One of the best examples of style failure is Pakistan’s captain meeting the queen of England in his traditional attire. He wanted to make a statement, however, it completely failed to impress the audience. Instead, he was reprimanded for breaking protocol. Hence, even while making a signature style, it is important to tailor your style to the occasion.

These are people skills and they matter the most. These skills advertise who you are in many ways. These skills ensure that you get a better reception wherever you go and people remember who you are. It is time for you to stop complaining and hone these skills. It will make you a better communicator and it will ensure that you meet less resistance at your workplace and at home.

Here is an interesting story I came across:

‘After receiving the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1918, Max Planck went on tour across Germany. Wherever he was invited, he delivered the same lecture on new quantum mechanics. Over time, his chauffeur grew to know it by heart: ‘It has to be boring giving the same speech each time, Professor Planck. How about I do it for you in Munich? You can sit in the front row and wear my chauffeur’s cap. That’d give us both a bit of variety.’ Planck liked the idea, so that evening the driver held a long lecture on quantum mechanics in front of a distinguished audience. Later, a physics professor stood up with a question. The driver recoiled: ‘Never would I have thought that someone from such an advanced city as Munich would ask such a simple question! My chauffeur will answer it.’

The internet is full of content- articles, posts, studies, stories. And the portals like Medium, LinkedIn, Facebook with other social media platforms are the biggest yard where a large number of curated content/articles/posts are dumped every second, and most of them come from chauffeur knowledge, even the news portals and news channels are hugely dependent on it.

In recent times most motivational speakers and trainers are examples of chauffeurs, the knowledge they espouse is not their own. They reel off eloquent words as if reading from a script.

Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult to separate true knowledge from chauffeur knowledge..

2 historical events happened this month in space history:

2 Self-made billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Brandson flew to space, with their own space shuttles and investments, and with them 2 young guys also travelled to space:

Oliver Daemen, the Dutch teenager paid(from his father’s account) approx Rs. 300cr for an 11 min flight to space and became the youngest person and the only teenager to have flown in space.

On the other hand, Sirisha Bandla 33 years old became the second India-born woman to go to space and paid nothing, or we can say invested her precious years of life in learning and developing skills to be in space for 1 min and 12 seconds.

Yes there were a few more who travelled with them but for me, these 4 are important, out of 4, 3 invested their life, in learning and gaining knowledge and reaching space and opening the door for many other dreamers who want to travel to space, and the fourth one- yes he had a Private Pilot licence, still 2 years to go for becoming a professional travelled by just paying for the seat.

So yes money can buy everything you want to buy, be a space shuttle or a 10 min flight to space, but once you pay money will be exhausted, on the contrary education and skills can make you strong enough to take you anywhere you want, be it space or Mars, and it will grow with experience and yes, you can buy money also with skill, education and knowledge

As we grow up, our perspective changes and our faith in magic, fairy tales, and superheroes go away. We all think that we now know everything, but as we go deeper into things, we realize, there is still a lot more to know.

Sometimes a person changes, sometimes our perspective of seeing him changes. As we grow up, not only by age, but by knowledge, by learning, by doing some experiences, the attitude toward seeing things also changes, and this change is necessary. This knowledge, this change sometimes also leads us to such a truth, where we think — “I wish it were true”, and sometimes we are surprised to know the truth, and this process continues every day, every second.

Now it is in our hands, which truth we have to keep with us, which truth has to be changed, and which truth we have to forget and move on. Because the most important thing is happiness, without being a fool.

Hindi translation:

जैसे जैसे हम बड़े होते है, हमारा नजरिया बदलता जाता है, जादू, परियो की कहानी, सुपरहेरो से हमारा विश्वास उठता जाता है. हमें हर वक़्त लगता है हम अब सब जानते है, पर जैसे जैसे हम चीज़ो की गहराइयो में जाते जाते हे, हमें एहसास होता है, अभी और भी बहोत कुछ जानना बाकी है.

कभी इंसान बदलता है, कभी उसे देखने का हमारा नजरिया बदल जाता है. जैसे जैसे हम बड़े होते है, सिर्फ आयु से नहीं बल्कि ज्ञान से, सीख से, एक्सपीरियंस से चीज़ो का देखने का नजरिया बदलता रहता है, और ये बदलाव ज़रूरी भी है. ये ज्ञान, ये बदलाव कभी कभी हमें एक ऐसी सच्चाई की ओर भी लेजाता है, जहा जाकर हम सोचते है- “काश ये सच होता”, तो कभी हमें आश्चर्य होता है वो सच जान कर, और ये प्रक्रिया हर दिन, हर वक़्त जारी रहती है।

अब ये हमारे हाथ में है, किस सच को हमें साथ रखना है, किस सच को बदलना है, और किस सच को भुला कर आगे बढ़ना है. क्युकी सब से ज़रूरी है खुश रहना।

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You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching, Love like you’ll never be hurt, Sing like there’s nobody listening, And live like it’s heaven on earth.

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Be who you are and say what you feel.

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