Who Owns Your Dream? Taking Charge of Your Own Outcome

I have a friend who really wants to take the steps necessary to turn a business dream of hers into a reality. She put a lot of thought into developing a fantastic and detailed plan, complete with all the activities she needed to tackle in order to make it happen. My friend is highly self-aware and very good at project management, so not surprisingly had thought of pretty much everything, including the financial commitment, emotional adjustments, and impact on her lifestyle. While ambitious, the plan was SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. She was fully passionate and committed, caught up in excitement and optimism.

What could go wrong?

It’s easy to feel good when things are going your way

As we discussed and kneaded the plan, I became aware of something: There were a few large items (in this case, anchor clients and advertisers) that her plan required fall into place in order for her dream to be successful, and these items were largely outside her control once she made the ask. At the moment of our conversation, it just so happened that everything looked good – clear sailing – and she was feeling buoyant and positive. Yet precisely because of this, I recognized during the course of our conversation that (a) those items weren’t yet certain, and (b) her plan in many ways hinged on these critical items going smoothly. If they didn’t happen as she was envisioning, the plan – and her feelings of positivity and confidence – could fall apart.

What happens when things don’t work out?

This made me reflect on other recent conversations I’d had with friends and family members where their mood and outlook on life had been soured by some event not going as planned or some outcome not turning out as desired. You know the sort of experience I’m talking about, where something doesn’t go your way, and it turns you into a Ms. or Mr. Cranky-pants or throws you into a dejected funk? Where your reaction is out of proportion to the actual occurrence – usually because you’ve placed so much emphasis or meaning on a particular outcome?

And all that rolled together made me think how easy it is to be buoyed when the world feels like it’s in your corner and dampened when it feels like more of a slog.

The rollercoaster ride

While reflecting on the conversation with my friend, I thought of my years working with brilliant salespeople, who tend to ride such incredible highs when they “win” and drop to sullen lows when things don’t go their way – and then bounce back up to ride the rollercoaster again. Interestingly, many of the best salespeople I know also happen to be gamblers to some degree or another: addicted to the highs and lows of “winning” and “losing.”

Some people thrive in this sort of experience. For others, when a buoyant mood and feeling of being fully energized suddenly plummets into self-doubt and moments of despair, it’s disruptive and difficult to recover. A brilliant plan can suddenly feel impossible. Perhaps you’re left wondering why you even bother.

Baby steps to the rescue

And yet, my friend’s plan had small daily baby steps built into it – reaching out to develop relationships with other potential clients and advertisers – that we recognized could mitigate the significance of the anchor clients and advertisers. By pushing herself to make a certain number of daily phone calls or telling her story to X new people a week, she could start building a sales funnel that would eventually feed her business idea with or without the anchors she was currently counting on. If those anchors came through, terrific! If they didn’t, what was Plan B? And Plan C?

Finding the core of your dream

Our conversation ended up revolving around a central question: What was the essence of her dream?

To explore this, we examined questions such as: What elements of her dream were non-negotiable? What was within her control and what was external? Where did her influence on the outcome begin and end? Where did she choose to place the power for deciding the success or failure of her dream: in her own hands or outside herself? At what point does some element not working out exactly as envisioned negate the dream?

As you peel away those layers, you come to the core. And usually that core involves less materialistic considerations (“I want an office in this specific building in that particular city”) than emotional and spiritual considerations (“I want to experience the freedom to make my own decisions and the pride of knowing that the product is my own creative expression”).

The take-away

It’s easy to fall into viewing the big, external “anchor” items as signs from the Universe – when things go “right,” we are buoyed; when they go “wrong,” we are crushed. It’s also easy to overlook the small daily practices and internal attitude adjustments – fully within our sphere of control – that can inch us, slowly but surely, toward our goals.

Which leads me to ask: Where do you place the locus of control for your life’s happiness? How do you react and respond to the things that are outside your control? What importance do you place on them?

Another related set of questions: How do you view the small, daily baby steps that could slowly build the same outcome? Do you do those small daily tasks or do you dismiss them, waiting for the bigger, sexier windfalls to occur – or not? How addicted are you to the ups and downs of relying on the outside world to validate you and give you permission to be happy?

And where would you most benefit by applying this thinking right now, today, in your own life?