By Dr. Luca Taverna - Mental Coach and training
Today I was reflecting on the difference between dreams and goals .
In the world of coaching in general - and NLP in particular - there is a concept that everything is possible . A conviction that I personally share since I was a boy. However, it will have happened to all, welcoming the new year, to have made one or more good intentions to carry on and then inexorably abandon them.
Walt Disney said "if you can think of it, you can do it".
I also believe that the power of the mind is amazing (otherwise I would not be here talking about mental coaching ...), and that very few can really guess what we could achieve if we could only exploit the full power of our mind .
Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-cybernetics, a science that anticipated many of the assumptions of NLP, discovered more than 50 years ago that on average each of us uses less than 10% of our mental resources. Believing that man has greater potential than those attributed to us by anatomy books is undoubtedly good for the spirit and will support, I believe, the future development of humanity. Ignoring this possibility deprives us of many options.
Why am I telling you this? I will explain it to you by asking you a question: how many times have you used the potential of the mind for your dreams or goals ?
Without going too far, I'm sure you've already heard of the importance of dreams and goals; so, at first glance, part of what I'm about to tell you may seem familiar. Perhaps you have set yourself in the past and you have pursued them with enthusiasm, only to see all your motivations disappear when what you have undertaken has not been achieved. Or perhaps you got what you chased to then realize that it was not what you wanted and you said "everything here?"
However, do not give in to temptation, nor do you make the mistake of considering dreams and goals as trivial. Try to think about when you do a puzzle ... how long would it take without the "final result" image that guides you?
When building a house what is the first step? Exactly: the design! Before you even lay the first brick, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to build. Question: would you climb a boat without a rudder? So why do we sometimes let our life drift without a destination?
Let's face it all from the beginning. What is the difference between a dream and a goal?
" An Objective is a dream with a deadline, " said Napoleon Hill.
Let's start with an important concept: dreams are positive . Dreams are the projection of how we would like our lives to be. Thanks to dreams, our life is better. Thanks to the dreams of some, today many people find health, work better, live better or even manage to achieve freedom.
What is important to understand is that everything around us started from a dream. But a dream that has taken shape, has turned into ideas, then into activities that subsequently became concrete actions, as long as this dream has become reality. The dream to become reality has turned into a goal.
Precisely for this reason, you are not clear when it will come true, or if it will ever be possible that one day they will become a reality.
But the dream is the first very important step.
And it is only when you start thinking about how to turn that dream into reality, that that dream begins to take shape and become a goal.
An objective is active, concrete. In addition to understanding the "What" is your goal, it also focuses on the "How" to do to achieve it. You are responsible for the outcome, as they are the actions that will lead you to achieve it. You have steps to follow that will let you know if you are close to the goal. The people who turn their dreams into reality are the ones that turn those dreams into goals .
And in the next articles we will see how to turn our dreams into goals!
Now consider a second. We spend a lot of our life preparing ourselves culturally, technically and physically, but how much do we train and consolidate our mental, emotional and character muscles? How much do we use our mind to turn our dreams into goals and reality?
I want to conclude by suggesting you a small one-minute test to test the potential of your mind by yourself:
by sitting or standing, stretch your arm along your side. Raise it, keeping it always taut, at shoulder height, in front of you. Now turn your arm sideways as if you were to indicate something behind you but keeping your upper body locked, simply rotate your arm as far as it goes (without hurting yourself obviously). Note the point on the wall (or the environment that surrounds you) that is now pointing to your index finger, or up to where you arrived with your arm outstretched.
Now return to normal position. Read this paragraph to the end and then apply it. Close your eyes and mentally, just in your head, the whole movement ... all the movement ... raise your arm, rotate it ... imagine it vividly. Only now instead of stopping at the point before, let your arm continue to rotate, maybe 4 or 5 fingers beyond the point where you arrived. It covers all the movement in your head 2 or three times.
Now open your eyes, do it and be amazed.
This is just a small example of the potential and resources you already have inside you now. Your happiness, your successes or your accomplishment could be right there, beyond that point where you stopped before using your mind .
