Sunday, October 12, 2008

Dreams without plans

In these days before the political debates for president, it's time to look at the candidates and ourselves.

It's one thing to make comments or offer advice, but do we practice what we preach? It's easy to give advice and tell people what to do, but it's hard to do exactly what you offer as advice/ or when we tell people what they should do.

With the financial crisis, Presidential elections and life in general, I really started to think about my comments above. We hear the candidates for President go back and forth about their dreams for the country. We here about what they will do when the get into office. The candidates all have dreams. There is also a lot of mud slinging and rhetoric.

But what people want to know is, what is the plan? Yes we can go to a website, but people would like to here more of what you are going to do versus, what the dream is.

The funny part is, we are just like the people running for office and running the country. Everyday we (me included) talk about our dreams. We talk about what we would do if and when "x" happens. But just like the candidates, we don't talk about or state what our plan is. Dreams are defined the following ways.

1. A series of thoughts, images and sensations occurring in a person’s mind.
2. A cherished aspiration, ambition or ideal
3. A unrealistic or self-deluding fantasy
0.
Most of us want reality not dreams. The only way to make a dream into reality is by having action or better yet an action plan.

I'm reading a book right now and the author brings up a great comment about dreams and goals. It reads like this:

“Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal and I will give you a stock clerk.”
James Cash Penney (Founder of JC Penny)

Many times we focus too much on what we want and dream about. We spend and waste a lot of energy dreaming. We start to focus on the wrong thing. We get distracted. Dreaming is ok. Actually it’s great. A world with out dreamers would be pretty boring. The key is to take some of that energy and put it into a plan that will make the dreams come true. We need take make the dream into reality!

Dreams are fun and plans are boring. I’ve heard this from several people. Yes it’s true; plans are no fun. Fail to plan/plan to fail. We’ve heard that before too.

I met a lot of people who are successful. Most started with a dream, but then they put it to paper and started working on making their dream into a reality. All successful people have plans. The people with plans have fun. Boring people are having fun and dreamers are dreaming to be those people.

I’ll end my entry with a classic TV show from the 80’s………”The A Team”....I love it when a plan comes together!

Good luck to everyone and making your dreams turn into a reality. It’s nice to hear about your dreams, but most of us would like to see you make them happen!