316: Which dream should I focus on?

DREAM. THINK. DO.

Welcome to our special “Dream Together” Q&A series. We’re going after the biggest questions we’ve received over our 15 years of BIG Dream Gatherings. That’s right. As we held these events around the country, we’d always wrap up with a Q&A with the audience.

That’s when we’d go after the biggest questions and the biggest challenges people face when moving forward on their dreams and goals.

In today’s episode, I’m going to offer some simple but powerful strategies to help you to get CLEAR and help you to get STARTED. So… let’s do this.

RESOURCES:

Episode 195: Shawn Askinosie: Finding Your Call and Feeding Your Soul: www.mitchmatthews.com/195

Episode 250: 3 Things I’ve learned from 250 Episodes of DREAM THINK DO (I talk about perfectionism in this one!) https://mitchmatthews.com/250/

Episode 262: Dan Grec: Finding Happiness Amid Chaos: https://mitchmatthews.com/262/

THE “DREAM TOGETHER” APP IS HERE!

That’s right! Our DREAM TOGETHER App is here!

The “Dream Together” app is designed to help you clarify your goals as well as connect with like-minded individuals so you can “dream together” to make those dreams (big or small) a reality!

So… HERE ARE THE STEPS:

STEP 1: Download the app.

• Find “Dream Together” for your Apple Device: HERE

• Find “Dream Together” for your Android Device: HERE

STEP 2: Sign up and enter the group code: dreamthinkdo

STEP 3: Be inspired by the dreams that are already there. Then… follow and encourage a dream or two!

STEP 4: Post at least one of your own dreams… and then invite friends to join you so you can DREAM TOGETHER!

Let’s do this!

MORE ABOUT THE EPISODE:

Okay… so as we’ve held our BIG Dream Gatherings around the country over the last 15 years… we’d always try to include a Q&A session at the end.

Now… if you’re new to DREAM THINK DO… and you’re not familiar with what a BIG DREAM GATHERING is… the short version of the story is… these are fun… HIGHLY interactive events that we’d hold… that would bring people together in a room… anywhere from 30 to 800 people at a time… I’d kick it off with a talk… but then we’d have people write down some of their goals and dreams on sheets of paper… post them on the walls… and then we’d invite everyone to go around the room to look at each other's dreams and then write notes on the “dream sheets.”

People could offer encouragement… ideas… suggestions and offers to help.

Now… with the current season we’re in… we’ve created an APP called “Dream Together” to provide the same opportunity… to… well… dream together… but now instead of being in the same room… we can do it from our phones and dream with people around the world.

It’s pretty cool!

Well… as I was saying… when we’d hold our BIG DREAM GATHERINGS… we’d do a Q&A at the end to give people the chance to ask any questions about things that were holding them back.

And one of the biggest questions… one of the most common questions… that would almost ALWAYS come up was… “Which dream do I go after?”

It makes sense though… right? People would come to this event… and come up with a couple… all the way to sometimes 20… to 30… dreams.

STORY ABOUT IAN.

So… they get excited… but then their brain starts to spin because they’re thinking, “Great! Now that I have clarity on all these things I want to do… things I could do… where do I start? Which one should I go after first?”

And this is an important question for several reasons.

1. If you’re a perfectionist… this question can KILL your dreams before you even get started! You’re sooooooooo worried about starting out with the PERFECT choice… and doing it PERFECTLY… that you never start.

“Perfectionism is the mother of Procrastination.” - Michael Hyatt

“The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly and instead embrace uncertainty and imperfection.” - Arianna Huffington

Or as I like to say…

“Progress beats perfection.”

And…

“Let’s learn as we go!”

2. Another reason it’s a BIG question is… a lot of people are VERY busy… busy schedules… lots pulling at you… lots on your plate. You probably don’t have TONS and TONS of time… days and days… to just throw around. SO… you want to be smart with how you’re spending your time. Hey… you’re listening to DREAM THINK DO… so I’m betting you don’t want to waste a day of the time you’ve got on this rock. Am I right?

Those are 2 reasons… and there are many more. BUT… since we’re keeping this episode at 15 minutes… we’ll leave it at that.

So let’s get to those questions I promised you.

All right… maybe you’ve been using the DREAM TOGETHER app… and you’ve got a few dreams in mind… let’s help you decide on which one to go after next.

So… the first question I like to ask in this scenario is…

“Of all the dreams and goals you could go after… which might be the best in THIS season of your life?”

It’s a simple… but powerful question.

It’s all about thinking about your CURRENT SEASON… and then weighing out which dreams would be the best fit for you… right now?

And I think it is important to mention… that just because a dream isn’t right for “this season” of your life… it doesn’t mean that’s a bad dream… or a silly dream. It’s just not right for THIS season. So give yourself some grace and say, “It’s a good dream… it’s just not for right now.”

At the same time… a powerful follow up to our SEASON question can be:

“What might be a way to take a small but significant step towards one of my bigger dreams?”

I’ll give you a few examples.

You may have a big dream of traveling the globe… but right now… there’s a flippin’ pandemic… so it’s not physically possible… or maybe you’re in college and the funds just aren’t there quite yet… or… you’ve got little kids and you’re navigating a full house… so the thought of global travels lights you up… but then almost starts to feel soul crushing… because it might be a while.

Well… what if you gave yourself permission to run some experiments…

To run some drills.

To have some fun with it.

What if you gave yourself permission to take 15 minutes a few times a week… to plan a dream trip. To ask, “If I had the time… where would I go?”

Or… “How have people like me taken a trip like this?” And do some research.

Heck… we’ve even talked to people about this very thing on DREAM THINK DO.

People like Dan Grec… who got the idea to drive from Alaska to Argentina in a Jeep. He didn’t have the money or the vacation time when he got hit with the idea… but over 3 years… he just gave himself permission to do the research on how he MIGHT do it. And then gave himself permission to take mini-trips… to see if he even liked taking short road trips… to be sure he’d actually want to do a marathon trip like that. But as he kept experimenting… he kept falling deeper and deeper into more loooooooove with the dream. AND he kept finding more doors opening to make it possible. And the dream… the one that seemed IMPOSSIBLE when he started… became a reality. He drove from Alaska to Argentina… and then he drove AROUND Africa… and he continues on… and adventure travel and photography is now his day job. Just because he was willing to ask these two questions.

https://mitchmatthews.com/262/

Another example… might be… that you don’t LOVE your current job… and one of your big dreams is to find a job… or a career that you LOVE. BUT you’re not even sure what THAT dream career might be.

Well… maybe you can ask yourself…

“What might be some small but significant steps towards figuring this out?”

https://mitchmatthews.com/195

I’ll give you an example of this type of approach. In episode 195, I talked with Shawn Askinosie who had been a successful criminal defense lawyer… but he’d fallen out of love with it. So he started to give himself room to experiment with other types of types of work. As he did… he allowed himself to take night classes, watch TED talks, invite people he was curious about to coffee to hear more about what they did… and as he did that… he discovered an unknown passion for chocolate.

This journey eventually inspired him to start a bean-to-bar chocolate factory and he’s never looked back. And NOW… Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award-winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri.

They source 100% of their cocoa beans directly from farmers across the globe… and Shawn is active in helping to create sustainable farming in each area he partners with.

NOT ONLY THAT… but Askinosie Chocolate was recently named one of the 25 Best Small Companies in America by Forbes and Shawn himself was named by “O magazine,” and Oprah Winfrey as one of the 15 guys who is literally saving the world.

How cool is that?

But he found that passion… because he was willing to give himself permission to DREAM… to start small… to experiment… and to learn as he went.

His dream was to find his DREAM CAREER.

But he didn’t know what that was. So he asked a better question for THAT season.

“What might be some small but significant steps towards figuring this out?”

So… if you’ve been wrestling with the question: Which Dream should I go after right now?”

Some questions to ask yourself can be:

“Of all the dreams and goals you could go after…

which might be a good one in THIS season of your life?”

If the dream seems TOO big to pursue right now, you can ask:

“What might be a way to take some

small but significant step towards

one of my bigger dreams?”

And hey… if your dream feels pretty BROAD… like how Shawn wanted to find his next dream career, but he wasn’t sure what that might even be, you can ask:

“What might be some small but significant

steps towards figuring this out?”

And then… it’s all about giving yourself permission to START.

Keep taking those small but significant steps forward… and more clarity… will come. Not to mention some amazing experiences too!

It’s like Abraham Maslow once said,

“In any given moment we have two options:

To step FORWARD INTO GROWTH

or to step back into SAFETY.”

And hey… I don’t know about you… but I find the best moments in life tend to come when we’re growing.

Amen? Amen.

Let’s do this!

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!:

Let me know. Join the conversation at mitchmatthews.com/316. You’ll be able to grab the questions we talked about… you can check out the episodes and interviews I mentioned… plus you can grab the DREAM TOGETHER app too… if you haven’t.

Plus, leave a comment and let me know about one of those small but significant steps you’re going to take this week. I can’t wait to hear from you!

Also, know that we’re going after topics like… “How do you ask for help on your dream?” and “how to make space for your dreams” in this DREAM TOGETHER series. So be watching for those… and heck… leave a comment on subjects YOU would like me to go after!

Until then… do me a favor. Please leave a review for the podcast wherever you’re listening to it… and please share it with a friend. Because those are the ways we can work together to help the world to dream bigger… think better and do more of what we were all created to do!

Let’s do this!

Talk soon my friend!

EPISODE MINUTE BY MINUTE:

• 0:02 What to expect today
• 2:32 Download the Dream Together app
• 5:31 What dream should you focus on?
• 7:01 The underlying problem to today’s topic
• 8:23 Breaking up with perfectionism
• 10:20 What is the dream that makes sense for this season?
• 14:38 Getting clarity on what your dream is
• 17:48 How can you start today?
• 18:13 How to get more resources