I've been seeing articles lately about how some people live the perfect online life while their real life is in shambles. Being the Social Worker that I am, my question is why pretend and not just live the life you want? Unfortunately, some people prefer to save face instead of living their dream life, because the truth is living your dream life takes work too. Many are running from "the work" aspect when in all reality they are doing more work pretending then they would be if they were truly taking the time to build the life they want without wanting to automatically jump to the end result. It's understandable though, because we live in a society of "now" and  "instant gratification." There is beauty in work because when we work for the dream we want we uncover so many other parts of the dream that we didn't even know existed that may be even more beautiful than the dream itself. So beautiful that we may even realize we simply weren't dreaming big enough. So my challenge to anyone reading this is to not waste your energy trying to keep up with the dream in your head by jumping to the end result. Your dream is only acting as a representative of the greatness that could be. Instead use your dream as inspiration. Welcome the work that would come with living that dream life, because it is the work that will ultimately reveal the beauty of your dreams. So much so that even your struggles will look like a masterpiece.  Check out some steps you can take to start living your dream life now. Warning: this is not for those interested in saving face, this is only for those serious about their dreams.

 How to Live Your Dream Life

1. Write down what your dream life looks like to the very last detail. 

This is the good stuff. The stuff that makes our hearts race and our eyes glisten. Here, write about the material things, but also the emotional things. What you will have and how you will feel when you have it.

2. Write down what you think it will take to get to the place of having all of the things and feelings you just wrote about. Assume the work will be double.

Many skip this step, some don't even know it exists. I call it getting real with yourself. When we dream our heads are in the clouds. When we consider what we think it will take to get to the dream we help to ground ourselves. Many will argue that this step is too overwhelming and will cause them to not pursue their dream. To me, this just shows you how serious you really are.

3. Revisit what you wrote down about your dream life. Do you still feel the same? Why?

I think it's a good idea to get real with ourselves about why we are or why we are not willing to put in the work.

4. Now that you are clear on what your dream really is, break your dream down into steps.

So now that you know what you want and what you're willing to do to get it, break it down into doable steps. Sure you're dreams can be overwhelming sometimes, but simplification is the easiest trick in the book for beating overwhelm.

5. Take what you wrote down as step one, and break it down into smaller tasks.

Write down what you think your first task could be to achieving step one of your dream. Now, break down step one into even smaller tasks. Create a timeline for yourself and begin to schedule each task. The point here is to get you started working on your dream life right away, by eliminating as much overwhelm as possible. 

I believe that once you are intentional about what your dream is and how you can achieve it you eliminate the need to save face because you will literally be too busy creating your dream. As you set out to intentionally live your dream remember to give yourself grace, hard does not mean impossible, and the end result is the sprinkles but not the cake, and probably not the icing.

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