How to make dreams come true?

Isn’t that a question we often have? We all have dreams. List of things we wish to accomplish in our lives. The chase for a better life, for the contentment of our hearts’ desires. But more often than not, it remains the way it began. A chase.

How to make dreams come true?: The gradual downfall

We see people living the life of their dreams. And so we might ask ourselves, how to make dreams come true? In response, we feel a surge of enthusiasm to create elaborate plans. You try to be your best. We make schedules to achieve our milestones. We begin with the feeling of conquering the world but rarely do we even travel a mile. The motivation fades while dreams remain what they were when they originated, an imagination.

Slowly, these unfulfilled dreams start festering within us. A conversation with a friend, an episode in our favourite series, an outing, an advertisement on a banner, TV, or smartphone, or a simple walk outside when our mind wanders off, brings those festering feelings to the surface. Our good days become mixed with instances of depressing moments. A random insulting thought for ourselves here, a small mistake or procrastination there, gradually changes our thoughts into resentment for ourselves. We start finding fewer and fewer moments where we even like ourselves. Questioning ourselves, ‘How to make dreams come true’, we start believing, what’s the point? You want to be your best, but you aren’t even doing okay. We plan and plan but rarely follow through.

Eventually, the moments we like ourselves become so rare all we can feel is intense self-hatred. The hatred we have for ourselves takes the form of fear, resentment, frustration & anger. And without realising it, we start lashing out. We become our harshest critics and only see the pain inside and outside us.

You want to be your best. But how?

Why do we often know what we should do but still don’t? Why is it that we delay things? Why do we procrastinate?

This constant conflict between what we want to do and what we end up doing generates the hatred and pain we feel for ourselves.

You try to be your best. You really do. But you fail so many times. 

It’s heartbreaking.

But then, how to make dreams come true? How to be your best?

By being lazy, but the right way. Let me explain.

How to make dreams come true?: The biggest obstacle

How to make dreams come true? What do you think is the biggest obstacle on this path?

Skills? Talent? Hard work? Wisdom? Guidance? Persistence? Enthusiasm?

These could be significant obstacles, but there is something bigger.

Why is it that we do not even begin? Why is it that we do not remain consistent every day?

We are not talentless. Neither are we stupid. We are not the bad things people might have called us in our lives. And we are not the insulting things we say to ourselves at our worst.

We are just distracted.

Being lazy the wrong way: The Pleasure Principle

When you think of someone being lazy, what comes to your mind?

Someone sleeping? Toying with their phones? Watching a web series, movies, TV, browsing on YouTube? Constantly checking social media?

These are all the things we deliberately do, especially when we need to be working on our dreams.

But why is it that we do them? 

The pleasure principle: Instant gratification

Neurotransmitters are a group of chemical agents released by our brains. And dopamine is a chemical agent belonging to the excitatory category of these neurotransmitters. When released, dopamine motivates our cells to take certain types of actions.

Simply put, dopamine is a ‘feel-good’ chemical which influences our behaviour by making our brains seek pleasurable activities. These are the activities that can drive us to instant gratification.

Our brain screams, “I want to feel pleasure right now!” So it drives us to do actions that give us pleasure instantly while deviously avoiding what we should be doing to bring us happiness in the long run.

The pleasure principle: The real life

Questioning yourself, ‘How to make dreams come true?’, sometimes you only have things in your imagination. Other times you devise elaborate plans and create schedules to be your best. But when it comes to actions, we start to put things off.

Why?

Taking action suddenly makes our plans real. The things that seem easy suddenly seem not so. The road, thought to be straightforward, starts showing its twists, turns, potholes, valleys and steep mountain climbs when we start looking closely. To act on our dreams, we need the active participation of our brains, create strategies, and do things that will almost always not bring pleasure in the short term. And so our brain screams, not a freaking chance!

When you take action to be your best, to materialise your enquiry, ‘How to make dreams come true?’, it makes every possible fall very real. The uncertainty of the outcome, doubts about our capabilities, worry of competition and the fear of the possibility of utter failure despite putting in our work start building anxieties within us.

Guess what we will do when we act to materialise our dreams which rarely bring any short-term pleasure while simultaneously creating anxieties within.

We will seek instant gratification.

Your brain tricks you into distracting yourself so that you feel good again. You feel pleasure right now.

So we pick up our phones to randomly browse status updates across social media. We watch random video after video on Youtube or start a movie or series. We flip through channels on TV, seek comfort foods, call a friend, go out or do just about anything as long as it is not the actions that further us towards our dreams.

Sometimes while procrastinating, we do things we wouldn’t have done if we weren’t putting off our work. For example, some of us have the habit of watching the same series/sitcom repeatedly. 

And why do you think we do that?

Working towards our dreams might make us anxious due to the uncertainties involved. So, our mind craves familiarity. Seeking predictable patterns is how our mind tries to cope with this anxiousness. Rewatching the same shows help our mind predictably control our emotions. It’s a way to bring order to the chaos of our world. Our minds way to distract us from our anxieties.

The pleasure principle: The vicious cycle of downfall

As if this wasn’t enough, there is a downward spiral that this distraction can send us from which there might seem no return. From where it might become almost impossible for you to be your best.

Working towards our dreams is often uncomfortable as it rarely gives us any short-term pleasures. It is filled with difficulties and creates anxiety due to the uncertainty involved. So, we delay our work.

We give in to distractions and keep on procrastinating. The distractions do relieve us for a while. But the distractions have to end. If they do not, we can end up procrastinating forever.

The question, ‘How to make dreams come true’, often meets with a regretful answer from within.

What the hell am I doing with my life?

We start feeling depressed. When we analyse how we have lost our way, sadness engulfs us. Our mind starts craving anything that will make us feel good immediately.

Something that gives us instant gratification. 

So we distract ourselves again.

To sum up, we feel uncomfortable or anxious when we try to work towards our dreams. And it does not give us pleasure instantly. So we delay our work and give in to distractions which grant us instant gratification. But after wasting time, we realise our mistake and feel sadder. Looking at the delay in our work, we get even more anxious to get back to working on our dreams. So what do we do? Seek distractions again. 

We get stuck in this vicious cycle which goes on and on like a perpetual machine.

And so our dreams remain what they were when we began. Dreams.

How to make dreams come true? How can you be your best when you rarely begin? How can you be your best when you keep procrastinating what you have been trying to do for weeks, months and sometimes even years? How can you be your best when your mind tricks you to distract yourself?

Is there a way out of it?

Yes.

By being lazy. But the right way.

Being Lazy the right way: The Do Nothing Principle

How to make dreams come true? 

How to be your best?

We have seen that our brain tricks us into distracting ourselves whenever we try to do our work or even think of doing it to escape the discomfort.

But what if we can create an even bigger discomfort against which even our efforts towards our goals might seem an escape? What if we can make our minds work towards our goals?

Let me share how I figured out this trick through a personal incident.

How to make dreams come true?: The discovery

I came across a novel in school. The first book I ever read. And I fell in love with the world of words. Since that day, I always knew I wanted to write. I didn’t know what I should write about or through which medium. I just knew it gave me joy. 

Cut short more than a decade later, I was contemplating my life. To my horror, I realised I had written zilch. Nothing. Something that I thought brought me joy. Something which I thought I always wanted to do to bring some meaning to my life. My dream. And I did nothing.

Why?

It wasn’t that I never began. I sometimes wrote a few pages. But nothing ever concrete came out of it. Things eventually just fizzled out.

This wasn’t an overnight realisation. The smouldering sensation that I was doing something wrong had always been burning up within me. And it’s not that I got busy with life and never paid attention to my dream. The thought of writing always stayed at the back of my mind. It would seem distant and drown out when life got fast-paced. But when life got quieter, my mind got noisy.

[What the hell am I doing with my life?]

I have had this realisation multiple times in my life. And it would eventually disappear as it was rarely followed by any actions. But not that day. I did not want to spend the next 15 years doing absolutely nothing in this direction again.

So I sat in front of my laptop, palms resting on its surface, document open and fingertips ready to type. 

And my mind was blank.

I had nothing. No ideas.

Almost 15 mins went by while I stared blankly at the bright laptop screen with an open empty document with no words in sight. Do you realise how long 15 mins seem when you do absolutely nothing? 

[What a waste of time. Maybe I can watch a 20 min episode of that sitcom and then start afresh.]

[No!] Screamed something from within me.

[Sit and feel this!]

[Okay. I am not going to run away to some distraction. I will sit. I don’t care how long, and I don’t care if I write something shit or come up with absolutely nothing. I am not moving!]

So I sat. Frozen in front of the empty screen. 

Doing absolutely nothing.

I forced my mind to think. But I couldn’t come up with anything worth writing.

15 more minutes went by. I had been staring at the bright laptop screen for half hour now, and not a single word was written.

I finally started realising why I had been procrastinating for over a decade.

This was difficult.

As I saw my phone, I wanted to check the notifications or browse something.

[No!]

[Okay. Okay.]

Another minute passed.

[The internet browser of the laptop is right there. I can maybe open YouTube and for a few minutes…]

[No!]

[Alright!]

Now I was really frustrated. It was half hour since I did anything productive or just enjoyed. I got up from my desk to roam. Then I sat on the couch. No phone, laptop, person to talk to or any other distraction. My eyes stared at the blank space of nothingness. The room was silent, but my mind was racing.

I realised how uncomfortable I was with being with myself. My thoughts. Every regret, imagination and worry about the future started running through my mind.

50+ minutes had passed in total.

[What am I doing? This is really frustrating. I am not going to open my phone, watch that series or do anything else I want to do. I might as well begin writing. Write anything and then see where it goes. This doing nothing is eating me up!]

So I sat back at my desk and started typing. Anything and everything that came to my mind. In the beginning, it was incoherent, but I didn’t give a shit. But as I kept typing, ideas kept on flowing. Slowly, I found myself going back and forth and editing my article as I wrote. The bunch of words started becoming more and more coherent. I continuously wrote for hours while not realising that I had almost written an entire article.

I actually did what I had just been dreaming of doing for years.

What was this?

The Do Nothing Principle: Do nothing to do everything

How to make dreams come true? How to be your best?

We saw what being lazy the wrong way was. Giving in to distractions.

So what is being lazy the right way? What is this ‘Do Nothing Principle’? 

It is to do absolutely nothing.

No. Doing nothing does not mean browsing on your phone, opening Netflix/amazon prime, talking on the phone, pursuing any hobby you might have or any other activity under the sun. 

It literally means doing nothing.

When we are lazy the wrong way, we keep our minds distracted. Distracted from the gut-wrenching emptiness that our unresolved dreams create. The instant gratification and the consistent dopamine hits keep us from feeling our own thoughts and feelings. In our chase to not feel empty, we seek instant pleasures and thus run away from ourselves and our dreams.

But what the ‘Do Nothing Principle’ does, is it forces you to feel that emptiness and not run away from it anymore. It lets your mind run wild.

The unresolved dreams smouldering within and slowly eating you now reach the surface. It makes you feel uneasy. Not good.

But then, this results in something beautiful.

You don’t want to feel this way anymore. You won’t allow yourself to feel this way anymore. The pain of doing something uncomfortable (working towards our dreams) now seems acceptable versus the pain of sitting idle and losing our hopes & dreams.

The only escape is to take action for the dreams that you had been avoiding.

So, you begin.

Do nothing to do everything.

Let me know in the comments below if you find this article helpful. What are some other ways you work on your dreams?