Spring is officially here, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the season dedicated to rebirth, fresh starts, and new beginnings! Just a few months ago everyone was shouting, “New Year, New Me!” accompanied by vision boards filled with electrifying goals, wishes, and dreams. I can agree with the masses in that there is something special about a new calendar year that gives you an extra mental boost of motivation and energy to become a better person.
Now here it is, mid April. Have you accomplished any of those “New Year resolutions?” Have you made any plans to accomplish those goals? Or are your dreams lost in limbo? Are you daydreaming?
When I think of daydreaming, I think of myself as so overly focused on something in my brain, that I am unproductive and unaware of my surroundings. Sometimes when you’re daydreaming, you don’t even hear what someone is saying–even if they’re standing right in front of you. Basically, when you’re daydreaming, you’re zoned out.
While Wikipedia is often thought of as an unreliable source, it hit my daydreaming concept right on the nose:
Daydreaming is a short-term detachment from one’s immediate surroundings, during which a person’s contact with reality is blurred and partially substituted by a visionary fantasy, especially one of happy, pleasant thoughts, hopes or ambitions, imagined as coming to pass, and experienced while awake.
When you daydream, your imagination takes over. You’re lost in a world of your own, oblivious to the concrete world around you. Even if it lasts all of 10 seconds.
I said all of this to say, daydreaming is unproductive. In the daydreaming state, you may think you’re moving forward when you’re really stuck in limbo. You may be talking, thinking and planning opposed to actually working. Sure, those initial steps are important but, eventually, you’ve got to get up and SLAY!
Talking about how much weight you’re going to lose, or constantly thinking about how excited you are about your new gym membership, will not cause you to shed a single pound. (Although I truly do wish it worked that way, LOL!) At some point, you have to get up and actually go to the gym.
Talking about your business ideas every day, without making any of the necessary steps to bring them to life is another example. While the idea is keeping you motivated and in a blissful state, you have to ask yourself, “Have I done anything today to propel myself closer to my end goal?”
While it’s great to dream–seeing that dreaming is the first step to doing–it can be dangerous to get stuck somewhere in the in-between.
So, here is a list of five tips I have to help you avoid/remove yourself from the daydreaming phase:
- Confront your fears: A majority of the time, fear is what keeps people stagnant. As long as all they have to do is “think” about their goal, they’re okay. But as soon as it comes time to take action, they get cold feet. I’m a living witness that sometimes, you just have to GO FOR IT! Even while you’re scared. It’s like riding a bike– just push off and ride.
- Buy a planner or use your electronic device for note keeping: It may help your productivity to visualize all that you need to do to accomplish your goal so that you can adequately plan to achieve it. Make checklists–lots of them.
- Schedule: “Someday” isn’t a day of the week, and “later” always seems to come and go without warning. Pick an actual day and time to work on your goal.
- Find an accountability partner: Tell someone you trust about your goals/to-do list. Have them check in on you periodically to see how you’re doing and make sure you’re on the right track.
- Drop the excuses: “Excuses are tools of incompetence used to build monuments of nothingness. Those who utilize them seldom amount to anything.” – Author Unknown
So snap out of that daydream and let’s get to work!
