DAY 20: "Calendar-Crunching"

Today contains another one of those steps which separate the DREAM-wishers from the DREAM-livers.  From this moment forward the DREAM will begin to take on a trajectory of its own as you move from one step to the next.

 
ENGAGING THOUGHT

Had enough of the corny cliches yet?  Too bad, here's one more: Rome wasn't built in a day.  Absolutely true, it wasn't built in a day - it was built every day.  I once read an interesting book about the planned infrastructure of the Roman Empire (sorry, I cannot recall the title or author) and the seemingly endless number of building projects and civic improvements the Romans undertook.  It was a monumental (often literally) task that went on and on and on.  Talk about job-security for engineers and construction foremen!  Can you imagine the task of keeping all those details and schedules coordinated...without computers or smart-phones!?!

One of the most important steps in the pursuit of any goal or DREAM is also one of the most easily overlooked or discounted steps.  This step in the process is the one that many "successful" people look back at and credit as the turning-point in the pursuit of their objectives.  It is powerful...and it is boring.  It is the...timeline.  Cue the band and the fireworks.

Some people are wired such that a looming deadline energizes them like nothing else, forcing them to tap into a creative vein or kick-it into high-gear and motor through some accomplishment; others, sense an approaching deadline and take that as a cue to...finally clean out that junk-drawer in their desk, or pretend that organizing their sock-drawer is now the single-most-important task facing mankind.  Wherever you are on the I-love/I-hate deadlines continuum, they are an important step if you want to take tangible steps forward in pursuing God's DREAM for your life.  Just remember this: deadlines or timelines are your servants, not your masters.

Superman's only weakness (other than Lois Lane) is Kryptonite; just a little bit of that glowing-green stuff and he's reduced to a quivering weakling.  Do you know what the "kryptonite" to your DREAM is?  Someday.  That's right, someday.  You know the drill:

"Someday I'll get serious about becoming a Rodeo Clown."    "Someday I'll have the time to learn to do Cosmetic Surgery." "Someday I can quit this job and do what I really want."  "Someday..."

As long as someday has a place in the vocabulary of our DREAM we will never follow through on pursuing and living it.  Someday has the power to subvert our DREAM and reduce it to the category of wish (go back and reread Day 3 if you need a refresher).  We use someday to hedge our bets and build a safety-net of excuses for why we can't pursue the DREAM to fruition.  The good news, however, is that the nefarious someday has it's own nemesis: the Timeline.  The moment we wrangle and wrestle our DREAM to coincide with dates on a calendar (even if they get changed and modified - which they will, guaranteed) is the moment that we can no longer use the term someday and now we can say, "On this date I will..." or "By September 3rd, 2012 I will have accomplished...."  Those are powerful statements; they can be DREAM-ensuring statements if you want them to be - if you choose for them to be.

ACTION STEP

For today's ACTION STEP you'll want to have a calendar available and you'll want to do this one in pencil.  Here we go!
Take your bite-size pieces from yesterday's ACTION STEP and start coordinating completion dates with the calendar.  Yep, that's right: you're assigning deadlines.

Be sure to take into account the realities of life: you probably don't want a lot of deadlines near the Holiday season, pay close attention to the load you are placing on yourself if you have regular seasons of extra work or tasks related to your career, etc.  Keep reminding yourself that you are taking steps forward in pursuit of the DREAM - not finishing it all in one season or even in one year.

Also, don't freeze-up or freak-out over this step: nothing about your timeline is permanent or unalterable.  You will make changes along the way, so don't fret over getting it perfect - you won't anyway.  It's just an important step to start forcing the pursuit into recognizable, measurable progress.

Tomorrow we'll pull it all together in one spot and see how the DREAM looks on paper.  

DAY 19: "Bite-Size Pieces"

ENGAGING THOUGHT

After yesterday's cat-cliche, let me throw an animal joke at you: How do you eat an elephant?  Answer: You don't, they're a protected species.  Got you, didn't I?  Yes, the real answer to that tired-old joke is, "one bite at a time."  It's the same when you ask the question, "How do I pursue something as huge and life-transforming as God's DREAM for my life?"  The DREAM seems like an overwhelming prospect - so overwhelming that most will never even ask the question - they'd prefer the comfort of knowing they are successfully fulfilling their low expectations of life.  If you're this far along in the 60 Days of Dreaming challenge then it's pretty safe to assume that you cannot (or simply choose not to) relate to that type of life-limiting thinking - even if you can very much relate to the feelings of being overwhelmed by the sheer size of the task in front of you. 

When I was five years old a neighborhood friend of mine and I decided to go to Disneyland.  We knew it was in California and that we were in Washington State.  He was six, so he'd seen on a map that California was below (down from) Washington...so we began to dig in his side yard.  You see where our logic had taken us?  We were undaunted by our monumental task.  We were also very dedicated (Disneyland!!!) and continued our digging faithfully for most of an entire Summer.  By the time his parents discovered our epic quest we were almost there (we assumed) and had dug a hole at least six feet deep and large enough to hold a car (same hole, different story, many years later).  Every time I tell this story someone is bound to remark, "I can't believe a couple little kids could dig a hole that big!"  They don't get it, do they?

If you're serious about pursuing God's DREAM for your life then you had better get comfortable with a new way of thinking about tasks that appear to be too big for you to accomplish.  Why can't two snot-nosed little vandals dig a monster hole?  I'll tell you our secret: we dug it one shovelful at a time.  That's the secret to accomplishing monumental tasks, as well; the same for pursuing God's DREAM, too.  No one - not even God - expects you to fulfill the DREAM in one shot or in one day.  As far as I've been able to discover, there is no magic switch that you flip and, "TaaDaa! The DREAM is fulfilled!"  It takes time and it takes steps - bite-size steps.

Breaking our huge goals down into smaller goals also has the benefit of giving us "wins" along the way.  Anytime we complete a step or a goal we feel the appropriate pride of accomplishment and the satisfaction of knowing that we are, in fact, taking steps forward in pursuit of the DREAM.  I don't care who you are or how disciplined you like to think you are - we all need to know that we're accomplishing something along the way.  Breaking the DREAM down into bite-size pieces lets you do that, and, who knows, you may look up after a hard day of accomplishing that one small goal and see Mickey Mouse reaching in welcome you to Disneyland!  

ACTION STEP

Today's ACTION STEP will alleviate some of the feelings of being overwhelmed by the size and scope of pursuing the DREAM.

1) Go back to your ACTION STEP from Day 17 and, combined with some of your research from yesterday's ACTION STEP, pick one or two of the strategy ideas that seem the most plausible.  If one strategy idea is the clear "winner" you can ignore the others and just start with that one.

2)  Break the idea down into its obvious "chunks."  EXAMPLE: If your DREAM is to do cosmetic-surgery on the International Space Station, then the obvious chunks will be: get education for becoming cosmetic surgeon; become an astronaut; fill out the proper paper-work to join the International Space Station.
 
3) Next take each chunk and break it down into bite-size pieces.

4) Continue this process until you feel like the breaking-down process is becoming a bit silly (i.e. too small of pieces).

NOTE: Don't get hung-up on the fact that this may or may not be the right idea or strategy for pursuing God's DREAM for you.  You will continue to adjust as you go along.  The point is that you are taking daily steps forward in pursuit - tweaking the strategy will become part of the process later.

Tomorrow we'll force a little order into the chaos and start setting some deadlines.  

DAY 18: "Time for Research"

ENGAGING THOUGHT

Whoever came up with the adage, "There's more than one way to skin a cat" must have been a horrible human being...or a dog lover.  However, I have to admit that whoever invented this illustration of feline horror is correct: whatever the aim or goal, there are myriad ways to reach it.  The same holds true when it comes to pursuing God's DREAM for our lives.  Even if we have a crystal-clear understanding of the DREAM (and don't be at all worried if you DO NOT yet) there still remains the questions of strategy and the path of our pursuit.

Maybe this is another spot where the age-old debate of Free Will versus Determinism pops up once again: assuming (as we do) that God does have a DREAM for our lives, does He also lay the exact pathway to fulfillment for us, or does He let us pick and choose the steps we will take to get there?  Personally, I believe that God allows us a wide berth of freedom when it comes to deciding how we will pursue and fulfill the DREAM He has for us.  I think He leaves a great deal of the strategy up to us.  Regardless of which you prefer, the task still falls to us to discover and delineate the path or strategy we will take.

This is where going back to school comes in - at least going back to English Composition (or whatever they called it at your school).  It's time to stretch those mental muscles, blow the cobwebs out of the investigative corners of our brains, and do some old-fashioned research.  Actually, perhaps not old-fashioned at all.  More like high-tech research.  One of the boons of the internet age is the ready availability of information just a few clicks away.  Throw in a heaping spoonful of Google and you're moments away from a total inundation of information on any and every topic imaginable! 

Google is your best-friend when it comes to researching your DREAM.  Just type in a few key words related to the DREAM and within milliseconds the gnomes inside your computer will amaze you with more websites than you care to visit (and some you won't ever want to - be sure to set your filter!).  You can even be so brazen as to boldly type your DREAM as a How To statement.  EXAMPLE: "How to become a rodeo clown."  Voila!  [NOTE: If, by some chance, this does happen to be God's DREAM for your life, you'll be glad to know that there are 143,000 websites related to becoming a Rodeo Clown.]

Your second-best friend in doing web-based research can be found in Blogs.  What's a Blog?  You're reading one.  There are blogs related to every subject and sub-genre and interest or career out there.  Surfing blogs will do a couple things for you: 1) Make you realize how badly grammar and language usage has slipped in our society; 2) Help you realize how many different approaches there are to doing anything (even skinning cats, unfortunately).  The real gold in many blogs, though, is the details you can mine from the autobiographical accounts.  People love to talk (type) about themselves and will often share the nitty-gritty facets of how they became so successful, or so misunderstood, or so...whatever they have become.  In these details you will discover approaches that may inspire or inform you in pursuit of your DREAM.

The key is really this: just because God has a unique DREAM for you and your life doesn't necessarily mean you must reinvent the wheel!  Chances are very high that your DREAM is similar to someone else's DREAM and, chances are someone out there in the great-big cyber-world is farther along in their pursuit than you are in yours, and, chances are they have put something on the web.  Whether you learn from them, emulate them, or do the exact opposite of them, the time you spend actively researching your options is time you won't waste on dead-ends or false-starts. 

ACTION STEP

Spend at least 20 minutes wandering the internet and looking at anything related to your DREAM.  Pay special attention to sites which contain anything such as "How We Got Here" or "Our History" - those can be a treasure-trove of information that may inspire you to approach your strategy differently than you had thought.  Follow the various links that others put on their sites.

Be sure to write down or save a Bookmark on the sites that catch your interest.  At this stage I would suggest doing more "surfing" and less in-depth-analysis of any particular website or blog.

CAUTION This is a balancing-act of self-control: on the one hand, following the seemingly "random" rabbit-trails on the internet can lead you to discover options that you never knew existed; on the other hand, however, you can get stuck looking at cute kittens or patriotic messages for the next nine hours!   

Tomorrow we'll inject a little bit of sanity into this crazy DREAM process (but only a little bit).

DAY 17: "Gut-Level Ideas"

Today begins the Strategy phase of the 60 Days of Dreaming challenge.  It's one thing to spend time pondering and praying, contemplating and imagining, wondering and writing (all of which you've been doing) - it is another thing entirely to develop an actionable strategy for fulfilling the DREAM.  If you've been at all enervated or excited by the previous 16 days, then hold on, this is when it starts getting really fun!

ENGAGING THOUGHT

I'm not a great golfer.  Okay, truthfully, I'm not even a good golfer.  In fact, I haven't golfed in a few years.  It's strange, really.  I used to enjoy golf much more than I do now.  If I had to guess why I've stopped enjoying golf it would be that I think about it too much.  My brain gets in the way.

When I first started golfing I'd just step up to the ball and whack it with the club.  It was fun.  The ball even went near where I wanted sometimes.  Then I started hanging out with golfers and they ruined the game for me.  They gave me tips and techniques to improve my play.  For every different situation on the course there was a collection of pointers and advice to memorize.  I could no longer just hit the ball closer to the pin.  Now I had to analyze my stance, adjust my grip, position my hips and shoulders just right, squint with my left eye, tense my nose-hairs and empty my thoughts.  The ball stopped going anywhere near where I wanted.  My enjoyment for the game shot sideways off the course faster than my slice.  I talked with a Golf Pro at a course one time about this and he said it's common for people who don't know any better to actually golf fairly well, then fall apart when they start learning "proper" technique.  It seems that we can instinctually hit the ball fairly straight if we don't think about it...and if we tell the "golf-experts" to shut their mouths.

In the pursuit of God's DREAM for our lives we may be better equipped for the strategy phase than we often give ourselves credit for.  Whenever we face a challenge or a project we begin to strategize long before we ever put the pencil to paper or before we start taking noticeable steps forward.  Almost immediately we begin what I call the Gut-Level strategizing.  Gut-Level strategizing is actually what it sounds like: formulating the plan of attack from our gut-level instincts or, perhaps more clearly, our unprocessed ideas.  These are the thoughts and ideas and plans we make before we ever give too much thought about practicalities or difficulties or costs or benefits or, blah, blah, blah.  Gut-Level ideas happen while we're still having fun imagining the thrill of fulfilling the DREAM.  Think of Gut-Level ideas as the feeling of the wind whipping through your hair as you motor down the country-road in a convertible on a sunny, care-free afternoon.  Capture the ideas generated while you're feeling that way and you have a handful of gold.

The problem is we very quickly leave these moments and remember that we forgot to close the garage door after we backed the car out; oh, and it looks like the engine is running too hot, better back off and find a gas-station; and, before you forget, you do need to get back soon enough to fire off that urgent email you neglected to do...see what I mean?  I don't know if it's part of the curse on fallen mankind or not, but we can't seem to leave the problem-solving mode behind us for very long.  We're so blasted practical all the time!  By purposely giving space to let our imaginations run free for a while we just may tap into the brilliant not-at-all-obvious strategy hiding in the recesses of our minds.  There was no way it would poke its head out if we were in kill-the-silly-ideas mode.  

There will be plenty of time for considering the practicalities and doing the hard work of scrutinizing our plan - but let's not bring those tasks into this phase of the DREAM.  Let's not spoil the ride or ruin the game! 

ACTION STEP

Write down as many of your gut-level strategy ideas as you can.  Don't worry about whether they do or do not seem likely to work - you'll refine later.  Your gut-level ideas may not be accurate but they often lead to a fresh approach in how you might approach the DREAM.  Write them down now so you can return to them later. 

Tomorrow we'll spend some time broadening the horizon a bit and exploring some strategies others have employed.

DAY 16: "How Resolved Are You?"

ENGAGING THOUGHT

There's a simplistic maxim in the business-world which contends that there are only two questions that every business must answer, no matter what enterprise or field you are in:
     #1: "What's your business?"
     #2: "How's business?"
If only the pursuit of God's DREAM for our lives were that simple, right?  Truthfully, it isn't - in fact there may be nothing we do more difficult than the pursuit of God's DREAM.  His DREAM will require more sacrifice of us than anything else; it will require more discipline than most anything else in our lives; it will necessitate difficult choices and gut-wrenching, faith-building decisions.  Our resolve, however, is a different matter.

When it comes to our resolve the questions can be stated rather simply: How bad do you want it?  What are you willing to give or do to see the DREAM come to fruition?  Questions of resolve don't necessarily take into account the specific difficulties we will face - it assumes them.  If the path were easy it would require little to no resolve at all.  When we make the decision (resolve) to pursue God's DREAM we do so with the assumption and understanding that it will require a great deal of us - and it is the strength of that resolve which often determines our willingness to tough it out when the way gets difficult. 

We're each motivated by different things and we've each got our threshold of difficulty we're willing to endure.  One person may be motivated by the fact that others are aware of their resolve to pursue God's DREAM for their lives; the possibility that they may have to face these "insiders" and explain their results keeps them from giving up.  The accountability factor is high enough to keep them in the game.  Others may be so fed-up with status quo living that they simply cannot face the thought of another day slipping by without a tangible, measurable step forward.  Not living God's DREAM scares them more than the fear of pursuing it.  Honestly, who cares what it is that motivates your personal resolve - just tap into it and exploit that motivation to serve your pursuit.

We've all experienced the futility of New Year's Resolutions. Most of us make well-intentioned promises to ourselves that we'll change something - and use the "convenience" of a New Year to catapult us into success!  We do great on Days 1, 2, 3 & 4 - but by Day 5 we're already modifying the "goal" to match the reality of our resolve, aren't we?  By Day 6 or 7 we're in full-blown compromise, and by Day 10 we can't even remember what the resolution was (after all, it took 15 years to put on that extra weight, it's silly to think we could lose it in 6 months, right?). 

When Jesus was garnering followers, several expressed their desire and willingness to follow Him as He taught throughout the villages and regions surrounding Jerusalem.  He saw right through their "resolve" and spoke to their true level of willingness.  He summarized some of these conversations with the response to a man expressing his desire to follow:

"But Jesus said to him, 'No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (Luke 9.62 NASB). 

Jesus knew what lay ahead for Himself and for His true followers.  There would be no room for half-hearted commitment or cushy devotion.  When it comes to the pursuit of God's DREAM for our lives there isn't room for wishy-washy commitment, either.  If we want to live God's best for our lives we must be willing to give Him the rest of our lives.

ACTION STEP

Take a moment now and write out a resolution regarding the pursuit of God's DREAM for your life.  Put it in your own words, but be sure to make it specific and resolute.

EXAMPLE "I have resolved to pursue God's DREAM for my life which is to one day take over Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory and give magical tours while singing."

Tomorrow we put it into gear and start strategizing the pursuit.  

DAY 15: "What If I Do?"

ENGAGING THOUGHT

Truthfully, it would be ridiculous to think you haven't been asking this question to some extent all along.  After all, isn't that really the whole point of the 60 Days of Dreaming Challenge - to envision our future as we pursue and live God's DREAM for our lives?  Absolutely, Yes!!!

However, that doesn't mean we've done a good job of envisioning what that future may look like specifically.  In fact, I'd hazard to guess that you might even have unintentionally avoided imagining specific images.  We do that to protect ourselves, you know.  Life is filled with disappointments, some large (people letting us down in significant ways) and some small (no nearby parking spots...again).  We tend to hedge our bets a bit when it comes to imagining what the future holds for us.  I seem to remember a Ziggy cartoon from many years ago that had the bemused Ziggy remarking that he liked to keep his expectations for each day at a bare minimum, that way he was always pleasantly surprised.

I think it's important for us to imagine what the future will look like as we discover, pursue, and live God's DREAM for us.  Of course, we need to be realistic and admit that it will likely look somewhat different than we can imagine.  Even with that said, however, don't stop imagining as much as you can!  I love how Paul, the Apostle, encourages his friends in Ephesus:

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen" (Ephesians 3.20-21 TNIV).  

Stop and think about that passage for a moment.  God's capacity for accomplishment is beyond what we can imagine or ask for - in fact, it is so far beyond, we cannot even measure it!  Can you imagine a lot?  Can you ask for a lot?  Me, too!

Sure, we need to be asking for and imagining the right things - that's what this whole process is really all about - but that doesn't diminish what God is capable of, and, according to Paul, what His power is doing within us, right now.  Go ahead, imagine what the future will look like as you do discover and pursue and live God's DREAM for your life.

ACTION STEP

Today's ACTION STEP is essentially the exact opposite of yesterday's.

Take a few moments and write out what you imagine the next couple years would look like if you commit to the pursuit of God's DREAM.  What will be the impact on your relationships? Finances? Emotional well-being?  Whatever and however you can imagine the future looking like.

Now do the same thing for five years out; ten years out; 20 years into the future.

Tomorrow we'll ask ourselves some frank questions about what committing to God's DREAM really means for us. 

DAY 14: "What If I Don't?"

ENGAGING THOUGHT

I didn't have the luxury of siblings that were close in age (my brothers are almost a decade older than I), however, I do have 4 kids all within 4-and-a-half years of each other.  Thankfully, they've grown out of the "I'm telling on you" stage.  There were times, however, when they followed the time-honored traditions of eloquent sibling-confrontations:
Child 1: "Nuh, uh!" 
Child 2: "Nuh, huh!"
Child 1: "Nuh, UH!!!"
Child 2: "Nuh, HUH!!!!"     You know what I'm talking about, right?  We all did the same thing (hopefully, we've grown out of that!).

I have cousins (all boys) that would fight on a regular basis over anything worthy of a fight.  One of the classic scenarios - guaranteed to escalate - was the name-calling that turned into a demand for retraction.  It sounded something like this:
Cousin 1: "Idiot!"   (I've toned that down, these were brothers, after all).
Cousin 2: "You take that back!"
Cousin 1: "No!"
Cousin 2: "You take that back, or I'm telling!"
Cousin 1: "Oh, yeah?  What if I don't!?!"

Think about that for a second, that was a huge demand to make on a little kid  (especially an idiotic-little-brother).  Cousin 1 made a much larger demand than Cousin 2's demand for a retraction of the name-calling.  Cousin 1 demanded that the other contemplate and imagine a future resulting from inaction.  "What if I don't?"

We don't normally invest a lot of time thinking about what our future might look like if we make no changes to the path we're on.  Most all of us have heard a version of the statement by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "The only constant is change."  We know that life is filled with different chapters, different seasons, even different locations for many of us.  So we know that our future, no matter what happens, will have some elements of change to them.  What I'm proposing, though, is the value of stopping once in a while and imagining what our lives might be like if we were to continue doing basically the exact same things were doing now.  No changes to our activities; no change in our relationships; no change in our sense of purpose or fulfillment.

My wife, Bobbi, coached a swim-team for several years and one of her favorite maxims to the swimmers learning a new stroke was this: "practice makes permanent."  Maybe you're not used to hearing it that way, maybe you've heard the similar, "practice makes perfect."  That's simply not true, however.  We develop behavioral memories (habits, we call them) based on the actions we do - whether those actions are right or wrong, positive or negative, productive or damaging - makes no difference to the fact that the more we do them the more they become permanent patterns.  Perfect practice makes perfect. 

That might lead to a sobering thought for some of us: everything we choose to do right now establishes the permanent reality of our future.  EVERYTHING.  There are no thoughts, choices, actions, or behaviors that "aren't a big deal" - as we often try to tell ourselves.  They are a big deal - they are the practice which is making permanent in our lives.  Every action (or inaction) builds the pattern of our lives.  All of our excuses and justifications may make us feel better, but that won't change our reality. 

So, with that as a backdrop, let's ask that question about our discovery and pursuit of God's DREAM for our lives: What if I don't make any changes to what I've been doing already?  What if I continue on the exact same path; the exact same trajectory? 

ACTION STEP

Today's ACTION STEP may seem a bit on the defeatist side of things, however, I think it is important for us to realize that inaction does have consequences and a somewhat-predictable outcome.

Take a few moments and write out what you imagine the next couple years would look like if you do nothing in pursuit of God's DREAM.  What will be the impact on your relationships? Finances? Emotional well-being?  Whatever and however you can imagine the future looking like.

Now do the same thing for five years out; ten years out; 20 years into the future.

Tomorrow we'll do a bit of unreserved, pedal-to-the-metal imagining of the possible future.