So . . . I am a dreamer, as I am sure many of you are. When I was younger (4th to 8th grades), I would spend two hours a day on the school bus, every day. One hour in the morning, and the other in the afternoon. During these two hours, I would . . . well . . . dream.
You see, I was a very shy kid. I had started working on overcoming my social anxiety in 7th grade, when I realized that life is all about interacting with other people and that there is no way to escape the interactions that come with day-to-day life. Eventually, however, my mission to overcome shyness had evolved into a mission to become the person I dreamed of being.
This dream of mine had taken me a lot of energy and determination to achieve. Before I could get myself to talk to people, I had to overcome my sensitivity. By sensitivity, I mean crying when somebody gave me a bad look, or not playing with my classmates during recess because I fully believed that all of them did not like me for whatever reasons my little imagination fabricated. So . . . I needed to somehow set my goals straight, make clear to myself what I really wanted to attain. There were a few things that helped me to keep my mission in perspective and part of my everyday life:
1. I made a list. I wrote out a whole bunch of adjectives that I wished to someday exhibit (smart, pretty, funny). I wrote out obvious and unobvious things. I even used people's names (ex: I want to be able to make people laugh like Selena), because I knew that nobody else would ever see this list. I then folded this list, placed it in a glass tube, and dug it in my yard. I decided that I would dig out the letter my senior year of high school, the year that I wished to complete my destination of becoming the person I visualized myself being. Doing this made me want to overcome my fears even more because I set my goal in the form of an object, so to say, and not just in the form of a vision. This also helped me to feel, in a sense, that my dream was "real," waiting for me to just reach it; and that once I reached it, I could just feel proud that I had attained it.
2. I made a dream poster- You may or may not have heard of this idea, but it is definitely practiced. It is a visualization of all of your dreams. Take pictures and words from magazines or wherever else (or draw) that represent your dreams, and paste them onto a poster. Put this poster on your bedroom wall, under your bed, or in your closet. You can hide it so that only you can see it, or you can hang it proud in front of your family somewhere in your house. Super fact- it is better to keep your plans and goals to yourself, because you are more likely to get them done. Telling others what you plan to do, unconsciously makes you feel as if you have already completed those tasks. "Seeing" your dreams helps you to focus on them, and therefore work towards them.
3. I gave myself time to think about my plans- Well, didn't give myself the time, rather had that one hour on the school bus to focus on my goals. Three specific things that I wanted to achieve were to know how to act in different social situations/settings, to be independent and positive about my decisions (straightforward), and to be tough and strong willed as opposed to sensitive. I would imagine myself as the type of person I dreamed of becoming. Doing so would make me want to achieve my goals only more because I would feel happiness and excitement when imagining myself as overcoming my fears and difficulties.
Hopefully you can put these into practice and find them as helpful as I found them!
No comments:
Post a Comment