Once in a lifetime: realize dreams in five steps
1. Do only what suits you
Mostly happy people tell you that they did what they always wanted to do. They dared to do something, but most of all, they were brave and patient enough to find out what they really wanted. For we often do not realize that our goals are not coming from within ourselves, but from outside - because we want to meet the expectations and expectations of others. To live a time in a certain city is a pointless goal if we only do it, because everyone always says: You have to have been abroad. A night with the childhood love is not a delightful dream, but a disappointment with announcement, if we wish this night, because it corresponds to a certain romantic-passionate stereotype. And not the people involved. For to make our dream happy, it must be our own.
2. Train your will
To tackle our goals, we need willpower. Because we usually know what we want for a long time: get more involved; or finally lead the clarifying conversation with the girlfriend. Do more sports. Learn a language. But then there are always reasons not to do that: too much work going on at night to distribute blankets to the homeless at night; it's too cold to go jogging outside. And at the time I can not call the girlfriend I have hurt, which looks definitely "crime scene".
Motivational researchers say that you can train your will like a muscle: by strengthening it with small things (staircase instead of lift, salad instead of pizza), you train it for the big ones. So far, there have been no studies to prove it, but meditation may seem to help you in a similar way: Experts say you can improve your self-control by meditating for half an hour daily. You learn to cope better with distraction and disruption and focus on your goals. Because especially the brain region, which is responsible for the pursuit of goals, is trained in meditating.
3. Be aware of what happens if you do not
This is true in two ways. For example, by imagining what happens when you do not finally do what you dream about. This technique is called "mental contrasting": First, imagine how good you would feel if you would finally tell the outrageous saleswoman the opinion. And then mental constrasting: how selfish and cowardly you will feel with every purchase, if you continue to stand by and watch the store manager squirt your employees together.
"Mental contrasting forces us to take a point of view, instead of just wallowing in fantasies," says Gabriele Oettingen, psychology professor in Hamburg and New York: If we imagine the negative consequences of our non-action, we get better with the obstacles get along on the way.
4. Expect crises
Of course, it's hard to do something you've never done before. You move into unknown territory, leaving the so-called "comfort zone". This scares people and anyone who takes on a major challenge eventually experiences a crisis. It helps to know that this is a completely normal reaction to daring to do something new. It is not to be confused with all the small and medium initial obstacles that prevent one from even getting started.
The initial obstacles we build ourselves, because we do not want to leave our comfort zone. But the crisis comes when we realize: I'm really doing it. Then you hang on rappelling down the mountain and cry and strangle. But the nice thing is: this crisis is over. By just continuing, once you've started.
5. Finally doing it makes life longer
"Doing something new helps to extend the sense of time," Dutch psychologist Douwe Draaisma said some time ago in a ChroniquesDuVasteMonde interview. Because: "If we look back, we have a phase of intense impressions much longer." But: "What leaves us cold, which is of no importance to us, has little chance of subscribing to our autobiographical brain." For some years now, fortune research has called the term "creating memories" the importance of recollections: it does not make us happy when we spend our money on things or when we try to repeat beautiful experiences endlessly.
For example, by always going to the same place on holiday, because that does not create any memories. If we really want to have something of life, if we want to live consciously and passionately, then we have to do all the things we always wanted to do. Because these are the things that touch us and memorize us.
