Are you ready to turn your dreams into reality? If so, today is the day that you start daydreaming – or as I like to say, “strategizing.”

Often you’ll hear people tell you, “Guess what I dreamed about last night.” And if you’re like me – unless it was an exceptional dream – I am unlikely to remember it 48 hours later. In contrast, the brilliance of daydreaming is the realization of waking purpose and vision that you’ll not soon forget.

Daydreams will tug at you … push you forward and fuel your passion. By definition, a daydream is a visionary creation of the imagination. These conceptions are essential to the longevity of your business. Your ability to see things – not as how they are – but rather, as how you’d like them to be will shape the future of your business.

Keep Your Dreams Alive

“I don’t dream at night, I dream all day; I dream for a living.” Steven Spielberg

Daydream on purpose – often. Your capacity to look past where you are in the present and see the future of where you intend to be is essential to business growth.

I don’t believe anyone starts anything with the intention of not finishing it or making progress towards a definitive end. And while circumstances will attempt to interrupt you, a dream is a constant that will help you to define variables that impact your life and business.

A well-defined dream will accomplish several purposes. It will:

• Reveal your purpose.
• Set the stage for tactical action plans and goals.
• Sustain you when things don’t go as planned.
• Define who you are and where you’re going — not where you’ve been.

The Practicality of Big Dreams

“Man, alone, has the power to transform his thoughts into physical reality; man, alone, can dream and make his dreams come true.” Napoleon Hill

Once you have a dream (vision) for your business, don’t forget that without practical application it is a hallucination. Fundamentally, this is why it is important to set business goals. Without short-term and long-term goals, as an entrepreneur you’re ill-equipped to make your dream a foreseeable reality.

Setting short-term goals can simply start with an assessment of where you’re at today, where you’d like to be 30 days from now and what plans you need to activate to get there. The habit of setting three 30-day goals ultimately helps you to reach long-term quarterly and annual goals. Think big and start small.

There will be times in business that you will feel stuck or lose focus – life happens. But, what happens when you’re on vacation (everything is going as planned), stuck in a snow storm (an unexpected event occurs) and your car won’t start (a challenge delays you)?

Most of us, myself included, will look to the owner’s manual or quickly dial for roadside assistance. A similar scenario can be applied to business; when you fail to consult your owner’s manual (goals) or if you don’t know what number to call (tactical plans) – you’re ultimately stuck in an undesirable situation for much longer than you’d like.

Your goals, when readily available, will act as a glidepath to redirect and reposition you for success when triumph seems further away than you can see. And if by chance your vision is blocked or you take the wrong side road, you can easily get back on track and gain clarity as to why you set off on a new adventure in the first place.

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