Have you sat and thought, ‘That’s great for everyone else but mine never come true’?

Yup that’s probably true for the majority of people.

The thing is that most don’t realise that everyone has the ability to make dreams come true, but it takes:

  • vision
  • planning
  • commitment
  • dedication
  • sacrifice
  • and an unbelievable amount of hard work

Falter on any one of these and that dream will evaporate into thin air faster than you can say boo to a goose.

Of course there is the easy way: win the lottery and all that, but I don’t think that counts, that’s just pie in the sky and a wild gamble. Sure you can choose your numbers and then each week hope they come up, but statistically you probably have more chance of being struck by lightning twice on a clear, sunny day in the middle of the Sahara Desert, than winning the lottery, so it’s not a great strategy, and let’s be honest, it’s hardly hard work.

Ok, then you hear of those people who got lucky and sold their businesses for millions and made their dreams come true but look back into their past and I’m sure you will find the ingredients necessary as listed above.

You’ll also be interested to know that in a recent poll of people making or selling their business for more than a million pounds, a very high proportion of them, if my memory serves me correctly 80% or more, were over the age of 65. This means that the vast majority of them worked their whole lives before they sold their businesses. It’s a small minority who either by design or luck, strike it rich early on in their years.

So think about it, unless you were born with a truck load of money or given it, then it’s going to take time and all of the above to make that dream come true, and most people will give up along the way. It’s a race where only a few will reach the finishing line.

Of course your dream doesn’t necessarily have to mean financial freedom or a luxury lifestyle; watch any of Ben Fogle’s programs where he interviews people living the dream in the wild and you’ll see that there’s a common denominator throughout the whole series and that’s that those living the dream are willing to sacrifice, make unbelievable commitments and endure levels of hardship that most of us would be unwilling to do on a good day as a dare let alone out of choice.

One program I remember in particular had a couple who spent the last 12 years of their lives hiking around the world. With £40k saved they hit the road with nothing but a rucksack on their back, 15kg each with everything they owned.

Hell I can’t even go away for a week with that weight limit! By the time I’ve packed my iPad, camera, computer, drone, batteries, cables and chargers, my hand luggage has hit that limit.

When I climbed to Everest basecamp in 2017 I had more than they had.

You can live the dream, but to live it you need to define it

Boy, I sometimes wish I could dump all the materialistic things I now own, but alas in our society as a whole, materialistic trappings are recognised as a level of success. . . I guess that in my own way I’m a bit envious of their freedoms.

How fab and lucky are those people you may think, but don’t forget that with no money there was also no formal shelter other than a tent, and sometimes they would be stuck in it for weeks with rain pouring down. Simple things that we take for granted daily like washing hair was interesting, the natural shampoo they used was their own urine! Joy.

Ok, but I guess you get my point.

  • You can live the dream but to live it you need to define it.
  • Once you have defined it you need to set goals to achieve it.
  • Once you have done that you need to make the plan to achieve the goals and work the plan until each goal is achieved.

Even as I write this, I’m thinking to myself, ‘Bloody hell Jay, you haven’t even done this in its entirety, you spend far too much time in running your business and not enough time plotting the route to financial freedom and living the dream’.

Last week a young man came to see me; he has just won some huge accolades in his given profession and is now recognised as the best in the trade, an up and coming star. Winning the competition was a long-time dream of his and he put a plan into action to achieve it.

But now that he has, what now?

And I guess that’s the key: what do you ultimately want to be doing in 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 50 years?

And what do you need to do to achieve that dream?

For the last 25 years I’ve had a dream that on my 55th birthday I’d be sipping a beer overlooking a waterhole where elephants and wild animals roamed free on a safari park that I owned or had shares in.

Writing this article, I realise that there’s not much I have done to make that dream become a reality other than work hard.

Sure, I’ve made plans, had them crushed, made new plans, only to see them destroyed too.

Sometimes the dream you had in your mind’s eye begins to fade and, unless checked, will disappear altogether in ‘if only’ and ‘what if?’

So, 14 months ago I made a commitment to get my business ready for sale in a 3-5 year period.

The lease I’ve just signed is for 5 years, and everything is being structured to make that happen, a new product line, a new factory, and a documented process of manufacture.

What’s more, I’m going to document the process of creating a new product and bringing it to market so that I can share the experience with others and hopefully it’ll help them too, when it’s complete.

Again, until I started writing this, I had forgotten why I worked hard; to pay the bills and keep the family fed are reasons for doing it but soon the spark will disappear. No there has to be a bigger reason, mine is giving back.

I love the wild, I love the bush and I love the animals. If I could help the elephants, I would be a very happy man when my time comes, so tomorrow I’ll commission a drawing putting into place my reason, my dream and will make a commitment to do something every week to make that more possible.

Every day as I get older, I’m told I look more and more like Mr Fredricksen from the animation film ‘UP’ and every year my dream pot gets emptied just the same.

However, unlike Mr Fredricksen, I realise that I don’t want to do these things alone and would like to share them with my family; my wife, stepdaughters and grandson.

The adventure for me has just begun!

I have a vision and I know what success will look like as I have a picture on my wall so that I’ll know when I have arrived or achieved my goal.

Think about the things you could do to cement your vision of success and make a plan on how you intend to make it a reality.