What Is Holding You Back From Your Dreams?
Six barriers keeping us from seeing our dreams come true
I hate when someone tells me their dreams and then they follow up with why they are never going to see them come true.
It happens all the time. I’m chatting with someone and ultimately we get on the topic of our hopes and dreams. This is a central theme in my life and I love to find out what other people are dreaming about too.
Anyway, we get into each other's dreams and then the other person says their dreams won’t come true and I’m just lucky. They list a bunch of reasons why they can’t make their dreams happen and why they are going to pack it in.
All I want to say is: BULLSHIT!
Instead, I ask more questions. We dig deeper into why they aren’t chasing their dreams. As we dig deeper and deeper, we start uncovering layers of things that are holding them back.
6 Barriers To Seeing Your Dreams Come True
Sometimes these things are simple excuses covering up hurts, failures, or disappointment. Other times they are people or circumstances who have slammed the door in their faces before they began.
No matter what it is, there are some very common things holding people back from seeing their dreams come true.
Fear of Failure or Success
“Regardless of what you want to do or who you are, fear will always see you as wholly unqualified for anything you ever dream or attempt.” — Jon Acuff, Start: Punch Fear in the Face
Fear keeps more people from their dreams than any other thing. Why? Because fear can keep you from starting, kill your momentum, and stop you before the last step of chasing your dreams.
When we experience fear about our dreams it can come from two vantage points too. Fear of failure and fear of success.
One keeps us from our dreams with scare tactics from the world. And the other uses scare tactics from within. Ultimately, fear will jump into our lives and keep us from the dreams we so desperately desire to see come true.
Self-Doubt
“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” — William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
Self-doubt is like a bucket of water being thrown on the fire of your dreams. It may put most of the fire out, it may make it difficult to restart the fire, but it doesn’t put our dreams out completely.
When we have self-doubt in our lives, we often stop any progress toward our dreams. It keeps us from seeing the potential and then we choose to give up.
To combat this in our lives, we must change our personal narrative. We cannot see our obstacles as reasons to doubt ourselves, but opportunities to make our dreams come true. Self-doubt can stop us, but it never truly keeps us from our dreams.
Poverty vs. Abundance Mindset
“Poverty finds a problem in every opportunity, while wealth finds an opportunity in every problem …” — Kris Vallotton, Poverty, Riches, & Wealth
Mindset is so important. Many people discuss this all the time. And the truth of the matter is that mindset determines so much about chasing our dreams. If we don’t believe we can see our dreams come true, we won’t see them come true.
A poverty mindset tells us we will never have enough. An abundance mindset says we have all that we need and simply need to make something of it.
For us to overcome, we must take hold of our opportunities, possibilities, and options. We need to see the potential in every barrier and obstacle. Then we need to take the next step and the next step toward a breakthrough in order to see our dreams come true.
Worry About Things Out Of Our Control
“Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow, it empties today of its strength.” — Corrie Ten Boom, Clippings from My Notebook
Worry tends to start with things we cannot control. We worry about how they might affect our lives or how they might keep us from things. And so, as we worry, things stop being so clear for us. We no longer can see our dreams and won’t see them come true.
When we worry about things out of our control, we forget what is in our control.
However, to break through our worries, we must focus on the things we control. We must focus on our actions, plans, and vision. When we dial in on these things it helps us move toward our dreams.
Naysayers
“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.” — John Locke
On the road to our dreams, there are always people who will speak out against our dreams. They are people who have already failed their dreams or given up on them. Most of the time, they are well-meaning, but they still hinder your pursuit of our dreams.
When we listen to naysayers, we allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by other people’s experiences and give up on creating our own.
In order to overcome the naysayers, we need to commit to our plans, focus on our actions and have people around us who will speak into our dreams. We need these people and focused actions to help us see our dreams come true.
Previous Failures
“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward towards success.”― C.S. Lewis
We all have failures in our past. These failures tend to weigh us down. Once we have failed once, we begin to wait for failure to continue. Our previous failures snowball into our lives and they will begin to create walls that keep us from our future.
When we let our previous failures determine our future we create an identity of failure.
If we want to overcome our previous failures we must let our past go as it is behind us. We cannot change it. But we can focus on our future as our driving force, and take one step at a time toward that future.
Final Thoughts
In order to see our dreams come true, we must figure out what is holding us back. If we don’t do this, we will fail. Our dreams will die out, and we will become one of many people who let go of their dreams because of the obstacles we have faced in our lives.
We cannot move forward without a breakthrough. We must look for the things holding us back square in the face and choose to do something about them. We must remember what those things are and how to overcome each one of them.
What’s holding you back from seeing your dreams come true? How are you overcoming these things? Share in the responses below.
Jack Heimbigner loves to see people’s lives change and see them chase their dreams. Check out his Maximize Your Morning email course to start chasing your dreams today!
