Chasing your dream… and having no money (at least for a time)
Vs
Doing 'regular' work, then not having the time and inclination to chase your real dreams…
= Dilemma
This is an integral part of the book and the underlying battle of what we are all about.
So you have these dreams. You have these ideals. You get the principles and you want to get ahead. But there’s a problem. Big problem.
You are stuck. You are kept in check by this Catch-22 loop. It’s a conundrum of the highest order, one that need to be solved and overcome to start taking leaps forward as oppose to 2 steps forward and 2 steps back (sometimes 3).
It’s quite a pickle and the system as it is and the mindset that accompanies it keep the status quo clicking along nicely…
Here’s the issue:
It’s quite the head scratcher… or headache if you’re like me! Let's examine these concepts a little further:
In the first one – the starving artist approach – you put your heart and soul into it but you don’t have a regular job and regular income. Therefore you don’t always know where your next meal or your rent is coming from. This is stress. It eats away at you and can affect your creativity.
You will also receive well meaning and not so well meaning ‘advice’ from various sources suggesting that it may be time to give up the ghost. At some point something has to give.
Either you attain your dream (or get a little closer to it), get some sort of boost that keeps the dream alive (be it cash or influence)… or… end up knocking it on the head and submitting to the regular life for that security of knowing you can live comfortably, if not emphatically.
Chasing your dream – No regular job – No money – Stop chasing dream in
order to live
Regular job – Regular money – Can live comfortably – No time/inclination
to chase dream
Of course you will tell yourself it’s temporary, which it may well be, but temporary can last forever… sometimes permanently.
You should check out the video/audio of Tony Robbins discussing the Rocky/Sly Stallone story. Stallone had literally no money when trying to sell the Rocky script, he couldn’t pay the bills, to the point of pawning his wife’s jewellery. That was effectively the end of their marriage.
So why didn’t he go get a job? He said it was because if he did, he would slip into a pattern, feel ok about life, the hunger would go and the dream would fade. He didn’t want this and he triumphed. There are a couple more inspiring things about his plight in that video that make it worth a look.
In the second part of the equation above, you have that regular job and have the comfort and security of regular money. Maybe not a lot but you know what you’re dealing with. You may not be rich but you can pay your bills and have a few luxuries occasionally… you can live very comfortably by most of the world’s standards and even if you have some work stress, you don’t have the ‘no work’ stress, you have your pay-off both literally and figuratively.
But the problem now is you don’t have the time or inclination to follow your dreams. In fact you may have forgotten them. You’ll think about them occasionally but then they’ll go again as there’s so little time and energy to give to them. You know what I’m talking about. Work takes up about 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.
The weekend is your free time so quite rightly you want to have fun and relax… this mostly takes the form of some kind of debauchery to escape this so called rat race. Hey, I’m not knocking it, I’m there too, just saying is all.
As for evenings… you can forget that too. Especially if you’re in a meaningless job and you know it. You’re tired, energy low, brain mashed so most people just slump, eat and watch some terrible TV with soaps and celebrities… and then do it all again the next day.
I don’t blame them (us)… if you’ve had the life sucked out of you it’s pretty hard to drag yourself up. A lot of people don’t exercise or pursue minor hobbies let alone take on any bigger challenges and aspirations.
So the dream gets squashed. Repressed. Stifled. This negative loop continues to play out and somehow, by hook or by crook we need to escape it...or alter it just enough so we can stack the odds in our favour. Some sort of balance needs to be found at first then the balance tipped in our favour, towards our ends, as time goes on.
So how do you find this elusive balance to begin with. Well isn’t that the million dollar question. There is no definitive answer, each individual must find their own way at some how engineering a situation where they can get slightly ahead.
Here are some ways of doing this…
Play a longer game. We tend to want things right here, right now. Which is fair enough but not the way the world works. It’s not our fault, we’ve been conditioned into this instant gratification society in this day and age. Modern advances have their pros and cons. You have to plant seeds, nurture them over time and only then do they produce the crop.
You can’t go hacking around a field looking for the produce if you never planted any seeds… or perhaps you did but never took the time to feed, nourish and care for them so they have not produced what you were after.
You will have to do a fair amount of work before you see results. So concentrate on productivity rather than results for a substantial period of time relevant to your endeavour.
Don’t think amount money, don’t even try… but apply yourself diligently and the simple universal law of cause and effect will make you reap what you sow… take particular actions over a particular amount of time and you will achieve particular results. It’s scientific.
Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds you plant – Robert Louis Stevenson
But we don’t tend to do that, we get disheartened and go round in circles. We must fight it and continue to move forward at all costs.
Have some sort of end in sight… or specific targets towards that end goal. Have specific dates and specific things that need to be achieved by those dates. Create a solid plan. By all means adjust the plan as you go to fit your requirements. Stick to the plan as much as possible, don’t get sidetracked by something ‘better’ happening now. Have the plan and your goal written down so you can refer to it regularly and keep you focused.
The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want the most for what you want now - Zig Ziglar
Always remember and visualise with emotion what it is you’re trying to achieve. Spend a little bit of time on your own each day, away from all the noise and just contemplate. You will be shown the way if you allow yourself. It may not come as you expected or hoped, things may take a different course completely but who’s to know what was for the best… and you’ll be so much richer for it (richer spiritually, ie. grown as a person, not necessarily more money).
Make time. If you require 2 hours a day to do something worth doing then just find the time, the hours are there. You can get up earlier and you can go to bed later. You can also give EastEnders and celebrity knob suck a miss along with all the other drivel. Foresake a night in the pub, it’ll still be there next time and you won’t have missed much I’m sure.
And if your job genuinely sucks all the life and drains precious energy from you so you can barely move or think (I’ve been there) then to start with find a new job that is a little more bearable for starters, that will free up some energy and positivity and re-awaken that spirit within you. When you have a job, there is no rule to say you have to stay there. Look elsewhere, improve your situation bit by bit.
Then, once you have a little fire in your belly, that will grow… then our old friends momentum and confidence will kick in and propel you forward. And as you’re propelled forward you will attract into your life the people and the situations required and push along the juggernaut still further. The snowball will be in full effect…
There are many books on the subject of success and personal development, achieving goals etc. Many many books, websites and the like. They vary greatly but one classic is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. This is well known and perhaps the daddy of so-called ‘self-help’ books.
I have read it a few times, many others have read it several times. There are many more out there but this is a good grounding. It was written in the 1930’s I think but the principles will remain true forever. But just like this report, enter with an open mind and follow the instructions laid out.
(Be sure to check out my BookBabble posts, as well as Threads and more in the LeoBooks community).
As an aside; by all means become an avid reader of such things as this will help you greatly, but don’t over do it. Don’t become a theorist. There’s nothing worse then people who have read all the books, all the blogs, participate in forums but never actually get anything done.
Ultimately it is action that will win the prize, not reading about it, not thinking about it, not writing about it… it’s all in taking action and adjusting accordingly as you go. So do read. Become a perpetual student… but become an even more perpetual action taker… this is where it all happens.
So, to defeat or at least have a good fight of this paradox you need to find a way. A way that works for you. Everyone’s different… different circumstances, personalities, commitments, abilities etc so think about it, work at it and keep persisting until you reach what you are aiming for.
And when you find a way to smash this paradox, do let me know. Write a book. I and many others will pay good money. This will be a central theme of my blog and future books. Getting the appropriate balance and living our dreams. It is possible, sure, and many people have done it but it takes commitment and a lot of sacrifice.
‘The system’ is not designed for us to win but for those that can it must be all the more rewarding. We owe it to ourselves and the world at large to give it the best shot we can. Pursue our dreams with all our might and live that dream or die trying!
We need to act. We need to act fast, decisively and DO what’s necessary… and that's the subject of the next chapter…
Take the Red Pill, Quit the Quo
Book written by Adam Barratt, 2011
Chapter 1: The Status Quo
Chapter 2: Who Am I?
Chapter 3: The Dream Chasing Paradox
Chapter 4: And… Action!
Chapter 5: Decisions, Decisions
Chapter 6: Priorities
Chapter 7: Discipline, Attitude & Patience
Chapter 8: Persistence
Chapter 9: Fear of Criticism
Chapter 10: Kaizen
Chapter 11: Blue Pill Heads & The Not Much Crowd
Chapter 12: Karma
Chapter 13: Rally Call & Final Word
Taking the Red Pill – The Next Level
Book written by Adam Barratt, 2012
Chapter 1: Now Where Were We?
Chapter 2: Routines & Habits
Chapter 3: Perfectionism Plague
Chapter 4: Gossips & Whingers
Chapter 5: Gratitude & Reframing
Chapter 6: Fear Fairies
Chapter 7: Simplify, Minimise, Zen
Chapter 8: You're Not Normal
Chapter 9: Closing