A little closer to your dream

 It’s scary.  Do it anyway.

Sometimes the hardest things to do are also the best things for us.  When we approach a situation that is unfamiliar, our instinct is to avoid it and maybe run for cover.  Do it anyway!  The discomfort you are feeling will be short lived and often you’ll come out the other side with new found courage or beliefs about what you can do.

Tonight I decided to try something outside my comfort zone and definitely outside my accountability partner’s comfort zone.  We tried an “act as if” evening.  I read about this idea where you have a party and invite everyone to come as they will be in ten years.  You come to the party acting as if you are the successful person you dream to be, living your dream life.  It is suppose to help you visualize your dreams and begin to talk about them as if they are a reality. 

I challenged my accountability partner to come to an evening where we would do a trial run of an “acting as if” party.  Since it was a little outside our comfort zones and I’m not sure I could convince enough of my friends to attend such a party-LOL-I decided we’d just have the two of us for an evening “business meeting”.  The idea was that we would meet as if it were two years in the future.  

I decided we’d meet at an upscale hotel for our regular Thursday evening meeting instead of our usual coffee shop.  The location was meant to give my accountability partner a taste of being treated well, like the other successful business people there for an after work drink.  At first it felt a little strange, but I quickly found it easier to get “into role”.  It felt less fake and more plausible as we talked.  The objective is to create an environment where you believe and act as if you are successful; however you define that to be.  I of course, in my future persona, had found the key to remove the Golden Handcuffs of a government job, working for myself and travelling the world; and my accountability partner had been successful with his website and was now looking at real estate investments that would be environmentally sound and would also provide opportunities to give back to the community.  

We ended the evening discussing the week leading up to our “act as if” evening and the thoughts that ran through our heads, like “this is stupid”, “you’ll sound like a dork” you’re not smart enough to pull this off, “you’re too lazy to do the hard work needed to get this off the ground”, or “you’ll never accomplish this, you’re just lying”.  The statements that we say to ourselves are remarkable and sometimes it’s a wonder anyone accomplishes anything.   The more we talked as if we were our future selves the more we became comfortable with the notion of success and the more we were able to bring to the surface the negative self talk and really dissect the origins.

It was an interesting exercise that was very helpful to both of us.  I might just try to convince some of my friends to have a full “act as if” party.  Might be lots of fun!  Why not spend a couple days acting as if you are successful.  Walk and dress the part and see how you feel.  I predict that you’ll feel a little closer to your dream.