Achieve Your Dreams By Doing These 2 Simple Things

It starts with knowing your worth

It’s easy to let your dreams go.

Actually, it’s not easy. Your dream will always nag at you and that nagging will eventually turn into regret.

But life and practicality can get in the way.

Paying your bills, managing a family, or simply trying to survive will always take priority over fulfilling your dreams.

But if you’re serious about wanting to achieve your dream, doing these 2 simple things will get you closer to it even if life does get in the way from time to time.

1) Start saying no to others

While saying yes to anything and everything has been all the rage these last few years, I’m an advocate for saying no.

I’m a big people pleaser so saying no is like pulling teeth to me. My automatic response is “sure”. I’ve spent my entire life saying yes to people — it’s exhausting. Learning to say no is a life skill, one I’ve yet to master but I’m trying.

There are a few reasons why we need to say yes:

• to avoid the awkward conversation of why you can’t or don’t want to take on the task;
• you’re taught that saying no means we’re selfish and unhelpful
• desire to be liked;
• you have no idea what you want in life; and
• you don’t know your worth

But saying yes to every request doesn’t make others appreciate you more. In fact, they may actually end up undervaluing you.

Saying yes all the time to things we don’t want to do can do some real damage to us.

Saying yes lowers your self-confidence

Praise from others is like a drug. The more praise you get from saying yes, the more you seek it. When we seek approval from others, that external praise lowers our self-confidence. You may think that the more praise you receive the more confidence you’ll gain, but I’ve personally found the opposite to be true. If you don’t love yourself or even like yourself, the next best thing is to look to others for approval. That’s what I’ve been doing almost my entire life — saying yes and working my ass off for a “Good job”.

When you say yes with the expectation of accolades or praise, your self-confidence will only suffer.

If you are dependent on praise and rewards, what happens if you don’t get it?

You think you suck or that your work is crap because other people think you suck. That kind of mindset doesn’t exactly scream confidence. It screams “I have no idea who I am or what I want to do, so I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

When you start saying no to others, you start to build confidence in yourself. We often say yes because we’re unsure of ourselves. Saying no means knowing what your priorities are and knowing you have the confidence to achieve them.

Cause confusion (even more so) to what you really want in life

Saying yes to things that don’t necessarily add to our so-called purpose or passion won’t bring clarity, only confusion. When we say yes to things that seem like opportunities aren’t, our priorities end up skewed.

When you don’t know what to do with your life, you want to figure it out. You don’t want to spend time doing something that hinders your progress. That’s exactly what saying yes to things that don’t matter does. It scrambles the brain rather than allowing you to focus.

“When you are saying yes to others, make sure you are not saying no to yourself.” — Paulo Coelho

Wastes your time

Saying yes to things you don’t want to do is a waste of your time.

We waste a lot of time in our lives and some of us even want to kill time. By saying yes to tasks that only help others but not ourselves, we do end up killing time. Time isn’t something to be frivolously wasted by doing menial tasks for others. Time is the most underappreciated but most valuable and finite resource we have. When we continue to say yes to people, we don’t leave any time for ourselves. And time is exactly what we need to work on ourselves and our dreams.

2) Become a morning person

As I reach over my nightstand to grab my phone, I’m instantly filled with guilt as I see 8:30AM flashing at me.

No matter how hard I try to wake up at 5am, I can never seem to do it more than a handful of times.

I’ve always told myself that I’m not a morning person. It’s simply who I am or who I’m not.

That’s the problem with always telling myself that though — I’ve allowed myself to become that person.

Your cannots:

Stop you from pursuing new interests

I love abstract art and I’ve been wanting to try my hand at painting for a few months now but I’ve always told myself that I’m not an artist. Accounting and creativity don’t always go hand in hand. I have paints and brushes in my basement. They remain unused because I keep telling myself that I’m not an artist.

That’s the trouble with constantly telling ourselves we can’t — we end up not even trying.

The most important thing you need to start doing to achieve your dreams is to stop telling yourself you can’t do something or you’ll end up like my paints and brushes, trapped in a dark corner and never getting the chance to pursue the thing you were made to do.

Your cannots will determine who you become

“Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford

Limiting beliefs filters into other aspects of your life. If you’re constantly telling yourself that you’re not a morning person, you can’t create great art, or that you’re not a writer, then you’ll never become that person. You won’t even try to become that person because you’ve set yourself up for failure before you’ve even started.

Your cannots will eventually become your identity.

The goal here isn’t to become a morning person overnight, it’s to stop telling yourself that you’re not one so that you could become one if you wanted to be.

Don’t let the things you do now determine who you could be 10 years from now. There’s no such thing as overnight success but sometimes the smallest shift in your everyday decisions and actions can produce the biggest changes.