“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney

No better time than now to be putting your dream or dreams into action.  The New Year is an exciting time and I think this quote fits it perfectly!!  This has always been one of my favorite quotes which is why I have it posted on my personal Facebook page.  : )  Plus, Disney World is such a magical place and I still love going there.  I love it so much, I ran a marathon there and got a picture with my favorite celebrity – Donald Duck.

What does it really mean?
To me, this means pretty much what it says. Of course, like most simple quotes, there’s a lot more going on. But on the surface, it’s pretty straight forward. The first part, “If you can dream it,” to me says – whatever you can imagine and create for yourself in your mind.

The second part, “you can do it” to me says  – you can make that thought, what you create, etc. a reality. So to me, this quote is about dreaming great and beautiful things, and making them so powerful in your head that you simply must make them come to life.

Once you have a sufficiently big reason why something must be done, the actual doing simply becomes a numbers game.  Ask often enough for help, assistance, and support, and share a compelling dream, then you will eventually make it happen. But first comes the dream.

Why is having a dream important?  
Now when the term ‘dream’ is used, some people think of a flight of fancy, while others see a beautiful and compelling future that they can attain. Which ‘dream’ did Dr Martin Luther King Jr. share with us in his famous speech? While to some, it may have been the former, to many of us (both then and now) it is the latter. While we are closer to that dream, we are not yet there. But we get closer and closer all the time.

For the purposes of this post, we will define a dream as a vision of a compelling future, which provides inspiration and motivation for the dreamer. The last two bits, inspiration and motivation, they are key. Without those, the dream will die when confronted by the realities involved in making it happen.

Great lengths of time, Herculean efforts, late nights, early mornings, massive efforts (which only gain you another failure, again and again), these are all part of the price you will  pay, if you are to make your dream a reality. And that’s where the inspiration and motivation come in, they keep the fires burning when the world tries to pour cold water over you and your dream.

Where can I apply this in my life?
How many of you ever saw the TV show like The Jetson’s and wondered where are the flying cars? How about Star Trek and the transporters or food replicators? While those inventions still are compelling, they are also still in the future.  And much closer than I could have imagined when I was sitting on the floor watching The Jetson’s all those years ago!

However, robotic floor cleaners exist (our kids named ours “Rosie,” after the Jetson’s maid-bot), and you can’t walk by a gym without seeing the treadmills made famous by George taking Astro out for a walk.

If you prefer Star Trek, compare the old style communicators with flip phones, or the newer chest/badge communicators with a Bluetooth headset and you’ll see that some dreams can be done. While satellite phones are a bit bulky today, so were cell phones from the 1980’s.

Then there is all the medical equipment from Star Trek, scanners and diagnostic equipment, that boggle the mind, when you look at the actual operating principles and the science involved. More dreams from both shows are becoming reality with every passing day.

Do you have a dream, a thought or an idea that keeps you up at night? Perhaps you had one when you were younger, but have set it aside because now you were a “grown up”? Dr. Seuss was a grown up too. The people who make Lego are grown up as well. Don’t let your age stop you from having, and working on, your dream.

Perhaps you have to modify it, I still would love to be a gymnast, but my body isn’t capable of that level of effort anymore. But there are other things I can do. How about you? Have you thought of any dreams, either present ones, or ones from your past?

The next step, once you have a dream, is to make it compelling. What would the realization of the dream, or even a portion of it, mean to you, your family, your friends, or even the rest of humanity? The author of the quote – Walt Disney – is a global icon because he made his dreams real for us. Why can’t you do the same?

The more compelling the dream, the easier it is to go through the inevitable low spots. You can start small, and work on a portion of the dream, or start locally, instead of going global in a single push. Expect setbacks, expect to use Plan B or Plan C at some point. Expect to be knocked down. Plan to get back up again and again. That’s just how life goes.

But if you can keep your dream alive, you can, with careful observation of feedback and some creative thinking, achieve some portion of your dream. Just be sure you never run out of dreams. No matter what you accomplish, you can always do more. And someone out there is counting on you, so DREAM BIG!

The post If You Can Dream It, You Can Do It appeared first on Live Excellence.