by: Kathy Best May 24, 2019

Sometimes it’s frustrating to see other people achieving their dreams as you struggle just to define and visualize your own. So how do you go from the visualizing phase to the actualizing phase? There seems to be a piece of the puzzle missing for some people. Even when you can see the end result perfectly and you’re crystal clear on what you’re intending to achieve, you’re also agonizingly aware of where you are at the present moment. The issue isn’t so much about what steps to take. Nowadays we can Google how to do or achieve anything and find the steps or the information we need. The problem often lies in what to do with the information. What to do first seems like a final exam question written in code, that we can’t study for, and couldn’t decipher even if we had the answer key.

If that’s not enough many people choose to pursue goals at which they’ve previously failed. If we learned to recognize our so-called failures as experiences that enable us to hone our ideas, skills, knowledge, and practices, by process of elimination, thereby preparing us for inevitable success. Instead, too often, we take those experiences as proof that our dreams weren’t meant to be. Or that we don’t have what it takes to manifest them and wind up carrying around those limiting beliefs confining them to mediocrity and revisiting them every time something doesn’t go as planned.

So what exactly are the steps to get from goal setting to actualizing? Well, there are several options. Willpower is usually where everyone starts. It requires sheer force of mind, which is what we are taught to rely on. With willpower we impose strict rules and develop a plan. This method requires strict compliance with daily tasks and details until we accomplish our mission or give up in frustration, beating ourselves up for not having the willpower to see it through. Willpower, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad, but it can cause positive and negative effects. Willpower is also not the best solution, or even a good option for certain goals or missions. Willpower is best suited for achieving something you are truly passionate about and enjoy doing. Only then can it be sustained over the long-term. Will power ceases to be effective for doing or achieving big long-term goals that seem overwhelming or that make you feel unhappy, conflicted, or absolutely unequipped to deal with.

Another option to actualize your goals is opening yourself up to Divine guidance, intuition, and universal wisdom. Our lives are a constant, continuous conversation between particles of energy. Everything and everyone on this planet and in, what scientists now recognize as, our multiverse is made up of particles of intelligent energy. Science is now just beginning to show us proof that our beliefs and our emotions impact every aspect of our lives and our world. When we practice focusing our intention and emotions in seeing, experiencing, and feeling what we desire and expect to achieve the intelligence of our energetic universe rushes in to support us. Support is given to us regardless of whether our intentions our positive or negative, but when we decide to consciously join the conversation going on within and around us at every moment, ask for inspiration, guidance, or support and then wait, watch, and listen for it we always get what we need to move forward into a life even better than we could have imagined on our own. Now this option can be a little more challenging for some people who don’t like to turn off outside distractions and tune in to their own physical and energetic wisdom. This state of being requires flexibility and an ability to feel the fear and do it anyway. Opportunities and synchronicities will continuously arise which will require quick decisions and the courage to do the unexpected with trust and enthusiasm. This option also requires being visible and vocal in the world in order to connect with the opportunities and synchronicities that will get you to your goals rapidly and gracefully.

The next option for success when it comes to goals and resolutions is commitment. This option doesn’t depend on sheer mind power, external signs, intuition, or divine guidance, but it does require faith in yourself and the goals you want to achieve. Commitment, just like willpower, requires dedication. Let’s face it, if we don’t make a commitment to ourselves and achieving our goals, nothing is ever going to happen. We can have all of the support in the world and an unlimited flow of opportunities falling at our feet, but if we refuse to commit to our goals and dreams we wind up bystanders watching life pass us by. The commitment means we stop identifying with where and who we are right now, wishing and dreaming things were different, and we start identifying with where or who we want to be. Even if you don’t know when or the how to accomplish your desire or goal you resolve to make it happen. Once you truly commit the steps start emerging and you become eager to take action.
 Indecision, backsliding, and even some self-sabotage can happen, and will happen if you start second guessing your commitment or making up excuses for why you don’t deserve it, it hasn’t happened already, or how impossibly difficult it seems to achieve. This doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind about a goal or dream as you move toward it, but it does mean you have to find a new goal or dream to replace the original one and continue your commitment to yourself and the life you long for.

The final option is not just one option, but a combination of all of the other options. It’s actually more of a strategy and it works well in every instance when you utilize it to its full extent. The plan, the dream, the path, the long-term goal may change a thousand times. We can’t possibly know exactly what we want or how to achieve it until we get clear on what we don’t want and what we refuse to accept. Life has a wonderful way of giving us tastes of the immense variety available to us, both positive and negative. It is then up to us to decide, using our beliefs, behaviors, and emotions, what we choose to experience more of and what we no long wish to do, be, or have in our lives. So we take the best parts of willpower, Divine guidance, intuition, universal wisdom, and commitment and we weave them all together like a net that is there to catch us when we stumble or fall. You see there is no failure. That word has been used to limit you, hold you back, and keep you from seeking your good for far too long. Failure is a word meant for a society that believes in lack, losers, competition, and inferiority or undeserving. The truth is that “failure” is just a way for each of us to discover what we are naturally good at, what requires practice, what excites us, what holds no interest for us, what inspires us, what sucks the life out of us, what gifts and talents we inherently possess and what skills and chores need to be honed or outsourced. It’s all part of the journey, kinda like on-the-job training.

Regardless which option you use to move from visualizing to actualizing you are going to have to take actionable steps regularly. When we make a plan and follow through with the necessary steps that’s when the magic starts to happen. Even if the steps are not in the correct order, or they are not the most direct route as long as you continue your momentum with action and stay committed to your desired goal things will shift, opportunities will open up, people will show up at exactly the right time and the support you need when you need it most will be there at the perfect time. Practice is what is needed. Practicing taking steps even if you don’t know what steps to take or what the next step should be. Just the act of making a decision, committing to it and doing what you feel is the next thing you can and should do will create a forward pull in the direction you want to go. So put down the TV remote, get off of Facebook or YouTube, put romance novel on the bookshelf, stop surfing the net for that pair of shoes you don’t really need, and get serious and honest with yourself about where you are and where you want to be.

Spend some time thinking, planning, considering, intending and preparing, but don’t let that turn into your only focus and actions. It feels productive, but like a mirage you never make it to that image you see in your mind’s eye. It’s easy to release personal responsibility by telling yourself that it will happen someday, or in God’s divine timing, or the Universe has other plans for me. You may even make a mental list of all of the other things that are a higher importance and the daily responsibilities that eat up your time, but the truth is that there is nothing more important than you being true to yourself and the dreams you hold in your heart. You probably have passions, callings, and creative projects that have become watered down versions of your original dreams because you felt you lacked the courage, confidence, or skills you needed to make them become reality. You drift through a mediocre life, listless, directionless, and purposeless because you are unwilling to put your needs first and unable to believe that your needs are important or valuable enough to pursue. The truth is that your passions, your purpose and your talents are the greatest gift you can give to yourself and to humankind and that scares you to death. You fear judgement, failure, disapproval, anger, and resentment, but more than that you fear success, approval, praise, love, respect and happiness. Everything you want and crave you fear the most because you have been taught to believe that good things don’t last, that you don’t deserve success or happiness, that you haven’t paid your dues or worked hard enough to get what you dream about, that you are powerless, a victim, and life does not love you. Maybe your biggest fear is that in achieving your goals you would have to look back at all of the time you wasted that could have been so much better than it was. None of that is true and it only means what you give it the power and energy to mean.

I believe that every experience we have in life is designed to open us up, push us outside our comfort zone, develop our gifts, skills, and talents and provide us the opportunity to recreate, renew, and reinvent our lives into the next best vision we can hold for ourselves. Some of us are born into extremely challenging circumstances because it is what our soul needs to propel and push us toward our truth and rediscovering our power and our purpose, but often they leave us feeling alone, victimized, powerless and cut off from our internal support system of universal wisdom. The undeniable fact is that we all have free will, so we can choose how experiences and events impact us, what we learn or take from them, and how we allow them to control or direct our present and future experiences. The problems arise when we cannot remember or become so disconnected with our Spirit that we believe God, the Universe, and Life itself is against us and nothing good will ever come of our lives.

Making a statement with the full force of your voice and intention, marking the calendar in bold, and committing to taking action by a certain date makes everything feel more tangible. It tells your subconscious mind that you are determined to do this and it kick starts the manifestation process. Everything that has ever been or ever will be created started with a thought, then and idea was born, then a plan was hatched, then a goal was set, a timeline was established, information and skills were gathered and honed, many theories or prototypes were designed and tested, until slowly, step by step, through the process of elimination, a much needed product or service was invented. What causes so many of us to stall, hesitate, or give up is not knowing the when and how of our dream. We have been instilled with a need to control every aspect of our lives, which in reality is absolutely impossible. We can create the illusion of absolute control, but the reality is that there are so many variables and so many other people involved in our lives that the only thing we have complete control over is what we think, say, and do in any given situation.

So decide today that you want to live a fulfilling, prosperous, purposeful, passionate life and do whatever it takes to start the ball rolling. Take some classes, find a mentor, hire a coach, interview people that are doing what you want to be doing, find groups that support each other in an element of your dream or goal, listen to podcasts that provide you with instructions or innovative ways to do what you want to do, read books that clarify what it takes or how it can be done, but most of all listen to your intuition. Not that loud nagging, fearful voice that tells you it’s impossible, you can’t do it, you’re too old, too young, to weak, to ugly, too dumb, too lazy or whatever else it can come up with to keep you stuck right where you are. Instead, listen to that calm, peaceful supportive voice that tells you it is absolutely possible and that your skills, gifts, talents, and passion are needed in the world. Listen to the voice that encourages you, supports you, and guides you with grace, enthusiasm, love, and compassion. When you start listening to that voice and taking guided action there are no limits to what you can accomplish, no matter where you are starting from.