“It’s the first time in my life I can feel my direction,” told me my wife, some days ago. My first thought was that I’ve always known my direction, and that gave me the illusion that my dreams would come true easier.
Why, too bad. I’m still here trying.
Do you know your direction?
Many friends of mine struggled for years. «I don’t know what I’m good at!» They were mostly lost, but they all had a certainty: they didn’t want the direction they had alreadytaken, being that a hated job, a faculty which had lost its appeal, a dream appearing impossible to reach.
Everything that doesn’t match our inner self feels wrong. By performing incompatible activities continuously, we see ourselves as twisted by events, enslaved, our potential frustrated, our creativity vanishing, our time wasted.
No matter what, the best thing you can do if you feel lost is to use all your (free) time to discover your direction. Avoid to victimize yourself, as it’s the contrary of taking action. I’ve seen too many people complaining every day for years, then leaving the office and do nothing about those complaints.
Complaining doesn’t make you aware of your situation, it makes you useless and annoying, and its a big waste of energy.
I know it, because I did it many times.
Do you know what is a direction?
So, how to find your direction?
First, we must define what “direction” means.
It doesn’t mean liking what you do for a living. I work as a Powershell programmer within a multinational company. Do I like it? Yes. It’s a little creative and never boring. Does it make me happy? Not at all. That’s just my profession, it’s not who I am. I am a novelist, so writing serves me better, making me happy. My good job is far away from the benefits I’d have by being a professional novelist. So, what? Is my direction being a writer? Again, no.
My direction is switching from programmer to full-time novelist.
Does that mean I’ll leave my company and write full time? No, it means figuring out how I can do that full-time, reading, studying and building a thoughtful plan, paying attention to the meaning of each of its steps. Then stick to it and just then write.
With purpose, with direction.
The plan must be flexible and enjoyable, otherwise the risk is to look at the moon and fall into the hole in front of me. If I want to become a novelist just writing novels nowadays, I’ll fail. Instead, it can be that I need to write articles on Medium and gain readers. Or I need to create free courses on writing and give them away for free to build a mailing list of interested followers. Or I can try to create a passive income to earn a full-time day of writing. Whatever. So?
Your direction is the path to reach your dream. Not the dream itself.
The dream itself starts later. When you reach it, you must live it. And only once you reach it you can decide the next part of the trajectory, your new direction.
I think that’s why people feel lost most of the times. Even the ones that know their dream mostly keep on dreaming without figuring out which are the useful, even wise steps to reach those very dreams.
Dreaming the dream won’t draw you one step closer.
If you don’t like the journey and make it yours, then forget about the destination. The bigger the dream, the harder the task. It is important to understand that all our dreams have a hard part to accept.
For example, to publish a novel you must write it and editing it many times and search for (often unpleasant) feedbacks and go back to edit it again. Until one day you know the effort will improve it slightly and it’s not worth your time anymore. So you publish it.
Trust yourself only
There’s a downhill in finding one’s direction. When someone finds his direction, he never follows the trend, and that triggers judgement.
That’s why dreaming about your dream is not enough. Whoever and whatever can crush your weakthoughts about it in a minute. You’re not doing anything, so you don’t have facts to support your beliefs.
Theory is always weaker than practice: it’s a primordial spark, it allows you to focus on what was blurry, it literally lights you up, but you cannot read or imagine reality, you must live it. Only so it becomes part of you, and you can move on with your bag full of dreams.
You must create a path to follow in which youbelieve, stick to it and be ready to adapt it to new circumstances: many threats will come. Anyone, even people you love, can push you back from your purpose just with few, aching words. The planned steps can delude you because the positive consequences you imagined are not happening. You will swim against the currents and seen as an utopian. And judged, fooled and forced to “face the truth” — that is, face the others’ frustration: “Put your feet on the ground, buddy!”
There’s the other side of the coin: planning is the perfect way to understand if your dream is just an infatuation. It’s the same that every good entrepreneur does with a business before really investing in it.
Is it real?Stick to the plan, even if success is not guaranteed. But on your deathbed you’ll be able to say, “I gave all that I had, and I powered my dreams, staying positive and active. It was worth a living.”
Believe it or not, it’s the path, not the dream.
Once you plan the path carefully, no matter how long will be the run, you can make it. You won’t, why, what a Hell of a run!
“May you accomplish all your dreams, except one” — a friend of mine.