Who do you desire to be, and have you created the space to dream her up? There is a big difference between a goal and a dream. As a high achiever, fundamentals, planning, and logistics are second nature. Instead of prioritizing your dreams, you focus on goals and to-do lists. You end up in a space where you are doing all this hard work but don’t feel connected to the amazing thing you are building. Today, I invite you to dream. Our dreams are the North Star against which we can set our goals. That needs to come first. Planting the seeds of dreams starts with building self-trust in the face of fear and uncertainty, which isn’t always something that comes naturally. We must teach ourselves to recognize and prioritize peace to force the articulation of the dreamiest version of ourselves. So I ask you, what is your dream? GEMS DROPPED “If you truly want to innovate, if you truly want to build something that doesn't exist in its current form, you want to do something new in the world, this way of growing (through dreaming), it's going to fail you at some point”. “There is a dream and a vision that I have for my life, the kind of life that I want to live that goes beyond being unalone, that goes beyond being surrounded by people that I call friends, or just humans, you know, which definitely is generally a part of the vision. But it goes beyond that. There's some specificity built into how exactly I want that to feel”. “There is a difference between a dream and a goal, there's a difference between a dream and a plan or a strategy. All of those have various roles to play, whether we are talking about something as human, as connection and friendship or if we were talking about business strategy, or leadership growth, or what it means to scale up a team, for example.” “The thing that we will immediately move towards is plans and goals and strategies because as we are high achievers, that's actually the easy stuff. It takes effort, it takes work, it takes putting in more work than maybe the average person will and you recognize that and so it's like, “well, I'm willing to do it. I know that about myself, why am I still fearful?” I want you all to really understand that this starts to get down to this fundamental, almost childlike place for us, where we need to connect to a dream of what it's going to look like”. “The challenge comes into place when you haven't dreamt into the version of yourself that you want to occupy. At this new level of visibility, who do you desire to be? And have you created the space to dream her up? The dream has to come first y'all. We have to learn to give proper credit to this dimension of ourselves. It's not always about the strategies and the plans and the goals.” “We talk about playing big. We talk about expansion and growth. And it's all there. It's all in you. It is. It's just begging you to access yourself. To spend the time to slow it down to access yourself”. “I believe our dreams are anchored in peace because peace lends itself to clarity. Peace lends itself to creativity. Peace lends itself to restiveness which lends itself to clarity. That imaginative state that we need to be able to bask in, to soak up, to shine out. We have to be at peace” “You have the privilege of dreaming, you have it. You've been blessed with it. You got to occupy it”. MENTIONS Kemi Doll - Your Unapologetic Career Podcast STAY IN TOUCH Come and follow me on Instagram @moniquershields and I would love your feedback so send an email to [email protected].