Turning Small Dreams into a Big Reality

Are you dreaming big enough? Bigger dreams lead to bigger results. So if you want to create a high-impact, meaningful life, check out these strategies that can help you dream bigger.

Bigger is a relative term. It just refers to being a little higher or larger than now. That is, our goals and visions for the future are a little brighter. For example, maybe we dream of quitting our dead-end job. Then, dreaming bigger may mean we focus instead on getting the job we really want. Or, if our current dream is to make enough money to support ourselves, we could dream bigger by imagining living really comfortably or being able to support additional family members too.

Dreaming big doesn't have to mean we suddenly want to be a millionaire or become famous (although it could mean that for some of us). They just require us to set our sights a little higher.

Because dreams are a cousin of goals, they also need realistic and well planned out. So rather than just telling you to "dream big!" and sending you off to figure out how to, let's first talk about the psychological processes of 'dreaming big' and 'dreaming small'.

In my early twenties, as I ventured into the world of adults, I realised that some peers my age don't have dreams or something they genuinely want to do. I learned that dreaming isn't something that comes naturally. It had to be "learned." It needs courage and some privilege. And to be honest, it's all about luck.

Some people got lucky; they had friends who dared to dream, so they also learned to dream. Some learned from their parents. Some want to change their life, so they dream of something better. Some read books, watch movies, hear people's experiences and get inspired to dream.

Most people I know who don't dare to dream weren't as lucky. Their friends are from similar environments; they don't have anyone to teach them how to dream, and they don't believe they can change their lives. Hence, even if they dream, they don't dream big.

If you are one of them, here are some things that I hope would help you to dream big:

Surrounding yourself with people with big dreams is crucial if you want to learn how to dream big. These dreamers see their dreams as a source of inspiration, not something to fear. They push themselves to become better versions of themselves, and it's a great environment to be in.

Being around these folks can motivate you to start dreaming big, too, as they are brave enough to believe they can change their lives. It's contagious, and you'll find yourself getting excited about the possibilities of your future!

Or, find them online

If you're looking for a community of like-minded individuals who are striving to achieve their dreams, Instagram is a great place to start. You can follow inspiring people who are working hard to accomplish their goals.

It's more relatable to see people who are still in the process of achieving their dreams, such as writers, artists, or designers, rather than only following those who have already attained success, such as CEOs or billionaires. This is because we can better relate to people who are in a similar position to us.

Looking back, I used to not have dreams. It was not until I found what I really enjoyed doing that I found my "calling." I had to experiment with many things, some of which I disliked, before finally discovering what I truly enjoyed.

If you haven't found a dream, chances are that you haven't discovered something that you are truly passionate about. I hope you are open to trying and experimenting with many things until you find something that you truly enjoy doing and are passionate about.

It's there somewhere. You only need to discover it.

Yes, it’s important to dream big. But turning those dreams into reality is much harder if you don’t have a clear picture of what you want. Charting your goals on a vision board gives your wild imagination a little more structure. Vision boards help motivate and inspire you to achieve your goals. Though vision boards can act as a sort of guide for your future, the best part about them is that they aren’t set in stone -- you can change it as many times as you need to without lessening its positive effect.

I hope you find this post inspiring. Remember:

It's not going to be easy,
But it's not impossible.

How to Live in the Moment

How often do you find yourself worrying about the future or reliving the past, oblivious to the beauty of now? In a world filled with distractions, finding presence—a state of being deeply attuned to the present moment—has never been more important for wellbeing.

Embarking on a journey to be more present can bring benefits that ripple out through every aspect of your life, helping you cultivate awareness, ease, and connection.

One way to be in the present moment is by noticing your surroundings. How often do you take time out of your day to actually look around and see what's going on? When was the last time you sat down, closed your eyes, took a deep breath, and just looked at everything around you?

Take this opportunity right now: close both of your eyes and take a deep breath, then open them and really take in where you are.

• How do the walls look?
• What about the floor or ceiling—what patterns can you see there?
• How many windows are there to your left and right?
• How many lights can you count from here?

When you stop to look at your surroundings and take in everything around you, it's easier to be more present in the moment.

Part of living in the present moment is taking the time to be grateful for what you have now (not in the past or in the future). If you are constantly focused on things you don't have, you aren't taking the time to appreciate what you have right now at this moment.

One way to practice gratitude is to write a list of things you are grateful for and review that list on a daily basis. Try to write at least three things you are grateful for in your life right now. Alternatively, you can do a gratitude rampage, where you write out as many things as you can think of in a certain time period.

The kind of social support you have in your life can also play an important role in helping you learn how to live in the moment. When you are around people who are supportive and positive, it is much easier to be more present in your life.

Spending time with people who make you feel happy and fulfilled can be a great way to help yourself live in the present moment.

Surrounding yourself with positive, supportive people will increase your own positivity and happiness levels. In turn, this will allow you to focus on what is going well right now instead of dwelling on past or future events.

Random acts of kindness, those selfless acts that help others, help you live for the moment of making others smile, and making you smile as well. Random acts of kindness are just that — random. They are spontaneous, in the moment, and a great addition to your daily life.

The next time you see that person walking in the rain, offer them your umbrella. That stranded motorist? Call for help. The elderly lady struggling with her groceries? Carry them for her. One of the easiest lessons for how to live in the moment is to do something for someone else without expecting anything in return. It not only helps you live in the moment, but improves that moment for you and someone else.

If you want to know how to live in the moment, you just have to take a look in the mirror and smile. Smile — it can influence how you feel.

Scientific American Mind magazine reports that making an emotional face influences how we feel. The magazine adds that there is an association in our mind between how we feel and how we react. If we feel happy, we smile. If we smile, it makes us feel happy. Our face communicates our state of mind to others and to ourselves. So smile — it will make you happier and help you appreciate life in the moment.

If you want to learn how to live in the moment, then you need to take the time to appreciate where you are, what you're doing, and who is with you. Instead of becoming caught up in the past or worrying about what will happen in the future, try to savor each moment as it passes.

If you need help with this process, talking to a therapist can be very helpful. They can give you tools and techniques that may make living in the present easier for you.

Taking Good Care of Yourself

Self-care, which includes nutrition, stress reduction, and exercise, helps keep a person happy, healthy, and resilient.

Me-time is usually last on the agenda for most people, largely due to technology and job stress.

Things like taking a trip or simply getting outside can contribute to lowering one's stress level and increasing life satisfaction.

It’s so important to make sure you take good care of your body, mind, and soul every day, not just when you get sick. Learning how to eat right, reduce stress, exercise regularly, and take a time-out when you need it are touchstones of self-care and can help you stay healthy, happy, and resilient.

Practicing self-care isn’t always easy. Most of us are crazy busy, have stressful jobs, or are too consumed with technology to make time for ourselves. Me-time is usually last on the agenda. Worse, we can sometimes feel guilty about taking the time required to take care of ourselves. So getting started with self-care can be challenging.

Let’s get one thing clear: self-care is not selfish. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Self-care has a range of health benefits, including boosting your immune system and energy levels.

It also strengthens your emotional health, reduces the risk of burnout, and makes you more resilient in the face of setbacks.

This means that when you start taking care of yourself, you’re better able to take care of others. You can also give the best of yourself in any situation at work or in any other area of your life.

Therefore, self-care isn’t a luxury or a nice-to-have. It’s an essential component of a healthy, happy, and successful life.

Sleep can have a huge effect on how you feel both emotionally and physically. Not getting enough can even cause major health issues. But stress and other distractions can wreak havoc on our sleep.

What do you do to make sleep part of a self-care routine? Start by thinking about your nightly routine. Are you eating or drinking immediately before bed? If so, it's especially important to stay away from caffeine and sugar, which tend to keep you awake.

Reducing stress is also key. If you have work-related stress, think about the best ways to calm yourself after a hard day or relax more while on the job. You might talk to your employer about lessening your workload or settle a disagreement with a coworker.

Next, make sure your bedroom is the best possible place for you to get good REM sleep. It should be free of distractions (such as a television, laptop, cellphone, etc.). And make sure you have room-darkening curtains to keep the sun from waking you up too early in the mornings.

Gratitude means acknowledging and being thankful for the things you have. It’s a positive emotion, and expressing gratitude has proven mental and physical health benefits.

Start by being present in each moment. Then, recognize the people, moments, and things that bring you joy. If you like, you can keep a gratitude journal that you write in each day. The habit of practicing gratitude can evoke feelings of warmth and kindness — both for yourself and those around you.

Exercise is a key element of physical health, but did you know it’s essential for mental wellness too? Regular physical activity reduces stress and anxiety, boosts cognitive function, and improves mood.

If the thought of running miles on a treadmill isn’t appealing, take time to come up with other ways to get moving. You can pick anything that is more appealing to you or you can explore and try a new activity. For example, you might consider signing up for a dance class or a recreational sports team. Exercising in ways you enjoy can hopefully make moving your body feel more pleasurable from the outset, and not a chore.

Set time aside for your self-care activities, and try not to let other obligations constantly interfere. It's sometimes very easy for self-care time to go by the weigh side because it feels like there are so many other priorities to tackle such as family, work or school obligations. Scheduling self-care time and activities not only makes it easier to do but can serve as a reminder that it is also a priority for your overall health and wellbeing. Taking care of yourself will hopefully allow you to actually better tackle all your responsibilities.

Whether it’s a few minutes every day or more time once a week, putting self-care on your schedule will remind you that it's important and help establish self-care as a healthy routine.

Stress is something everyone faces from time to time, whether it’s at work, at school, or at home. Finding ways to manage your stress level and to prevent stress from spiraling can certainly be considered an act of self-care. While some stress in life is sometimes helpful and even necessary, developing the skills of self care to prevent heightened levels of stress can help clear your mind so you can feel your best.

Generally speaking, practicing self-care regularly can really help manage your stress levels and may make it easier for you to navigate stressful situations when they come up in your life. However, self care primarily falls under the category of healthy coping and lifestyle skills. It is also important to be aware and to realize when self care just may not be enough. In life situations where the stress is simply too high, sometimes even leading to feelings of anxiety and depression, it may be time to seek professional help. Therapy, in combination with a healthy lifestyle, can then help you reduce your stress levels and regain a sense of confidence to then navigate your life more to your liking.

We often treat not only everyone else but our pets and even our car better then ourselves.

Take the challenge to be kind to yourself. Drop the judgments, silence the inner critic, get out of your comfort zone and become your compassionate coach and supportive cheerleader.

To put this in practice, end the day with noticing at least one thing you did well today (i.e. you remembered your friend’s birthday; you showed up on time; you took one thing off your to do list; you added some steps to your exercise program; you received a thank you from a patient or a colleague).

Stopping self-criticism is a hard habit to give up. Try to replace it by celebrating your success.

Life can sometimes become overwhelming, and all the stuff you usually do to take care of yourself is looked over to make room for all the other things on your calendar. As you become stressed, self-care is usually the first thing to go. It’s easy to believe pushing yourself will pay off, but your abilities will become worn over time.

Some might say it’s cliche and the phrase may sound fluffy and cute, but self-care is crucial to help you function. Self-care can help you keep moving at the speed of life in a couple of ways. Practicing proper habits will keep you from reaching the point of exhaustion, helping you function normally under stress, and refocus to help you perform better.

Building Good Habits in Your Life

Our habits shape who we are. Though we admit, forming positive habits isn’t always easy.

Depending on whether they are healthy habits or bad habits, habits determine if we’re going to be happy or unhappy. Healthy or unhealthy. Tired or well-rested. Strong or weak. The power of habits is far-reaching.

Habits shape our attitudes, actions, and decision-making abilities. And they affect every aspect of our lives.

But before we can build good habits, we need to understand what habits are and how they’re formed. We also need to know what mistakes we should avoid in the process.

A habit is a tendency to do something, whether harmful or health-promoting.

A good habit will help you reach your goals, develop both personally and professionally, and feel fulfilled. However, not all habits are good.

Habits are driven by reward-seeking mechanisms in the brain. They’re often triggered by something specific. For instance, walking past a cafe and smelling coffee beans can trigger you to want a cup. Feeling stressed at work can trigger you to smoke a cigarette.

After a while, habits become a repetitive part of your lifestyle.

Here are some other examples of habits:

• Brushing your teeth after eating a meal
• Putting on your seatbelt when you get inside a car
• Drinking a glass of wine when you get home from work
• Eating sugary or salty foods when you're stressed at work
• Fidgeting with your notebook during a meeting

Forming habits is the brain’s way of being more efficient. As far as the brain is concerned, the more tasks you can complete without wasting time thinking about them, the better.

And our brain's tendency toward efficiency can be positive.

For instance, drinking a green smoothie every morning benefits your health. And not having to relearn how to drive your car every day means you have reliable transportation.

Of course, this efficiency can also be negative.

For instance, biting your nails every time you have a meeting at work can wreak havoc on your nails. Or not brushing your teeth after eating can lead to tooth decay.

Habit-forming is the process in which behaviors become automatic. It can be an intentional process, or it can happen unplanned.

For instance, you were most likely taught to wash your hands as a child. And after a while, washing your hands became automatic. It wasn’t intentional — it happened after lots of repetition.

Replacing your nightly glass of wine with a glass of water, on the other hand, is intentional. So is replacing your morning cup of caffeinated coffee with decaf.

One thing to keep in mind about the habit-forming process is that it doesn’t happen occasionally. It’s an endless feedback loop that’s running and active during every moment you’re alive. That brings us to the habit loop.

The way you define the goal you hope to turn into a habit does matter. Goals such as “meditate regularly” are too abstract, research has shown. You’ll benefit from being more specific about what exactly you aim to do and how often.

Don’t say “I’ll meditate regularly.” Say, “I’ll meditate for 15 minutes each day.”

Having a bite-size objective makes it less daunting to get started and easier to see your progress.

Now that you have established a specific goal, it’s time to think about what will cue you to follow through. Scientists have proven that you’ll make more progress toward your goal if you decide not just what you’ll do, but when you’ll be cued to do it, as well as where you’ll do it and how you’ll get there.

A plan like “I’ll study Spanish for 30 minutes, five days a week” is OK. But a detailed, cue-based plan like “Every workday after my last meeting, I’ll spend 30 minutes studying Spanish in my office” is much more likely to stick as a habit.

Making this kind of plan reduces the chances you’ll forget to follow through because the when and where in your plan will serve as cues to action that jog your memory. Even better: Put your plan on your calendar so you’ll get a digital reminder. An established, hyperspecific plan also forces you to anticipate and maneuver around obstacles and makes procrastination feel more sinful.

As you progress with your new habit, reflect on how it's working for you. If you're struggling to stick to it, think about why this is. Were you too ambitious? If so, consider setting a more manageable short-term goal to remotivate yourself.

Or, if your new habit isn't delivering the change that you expected, reflect on what's gone wrong. You may need to tweak your habit to make sure that it's delivering real change.

We all know about good habits. Wash your hands before eating. Exercise every day. Save for retirement.

But we often start a new habit only to see our efforts fizzle out in a few weeks — or even days.

And we often blame ourselves. I don’t have enough willpower! But it’s not that simple. Habit-building is a brain science. Once you understand it, your odds of success will multiply exponentially.

Boost Your Interpersonal Skills

"No man is an island." – John Donne (1572–1631)

You may not realize it, but interpersonal skills, or people skills, are something you already have. After all, you've been learning how to get along with others since the day you were born!

But positive daily interactions don't always "just happen," whether in business or in our personal lives. Getting the results that you need can be difficult when you don't "click" with people, or if you don't know how to act or what to say.

That's why strong interpersonal skills are as important in the workplace as "hard" technical skills or formal qualifications, regardless of the position you hold. They can help you to create good working relationships, manage conflict, motivate your team, increase productivity, solve problems, network effectively, and increase happiness and engagement at work.

Interpersonal skills fall under the soft skills umbrella. We use Interpersonal skills when interacting and communicating with others to help start, build, and sustain relationships.

Sometimes called people skills, these are innate and learned skills used in social situations pertinent to your career, education, and personal life. These skills include working creatively with others, communicating clearly, collaborating, adapting to change, flexibility, interacting effectively with diverse teams, guiding and leading others, and being responsible, according to the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.

For example, a marketing manager leads a brainstorming session and intentionally solicits participation from interns and newer team members so their ideas and opinions get a chance to shine. This demonstrates a few interpersonal skills in action: teamwork, leadership, motivation, and empathy. Such skills enable us to interact with others effectively, whether in the workplace, school, or on a daily basis.

Coaching skills are about helping others to grow and succeed. It involves offering guidance, sharing knowledge, and providing constructive feedback. When you coach a colleague, you're not telling them what to do, you're helping them discover their strengths and how to use them effectively.

These skills are the lifeblood of a healthy workplace. Effective communication is about conveying your ideas clearly, listening to others, and ensuring that everyone’s goals are aligned. It's also about being able to read non-verbal cues and understanding the best ways to communicate with different individuals.

Being aware of your own emotions and those of your colleagues can allow you to navigate workplace dynamics sensitively and professionally. High emotional intelligence can help you manage stress, address conflicts calmly, and create a positive work environment.

Start by becoming more aware of how you interact with others and how they respond to you.

• Seek feedback from trusted colleagues or friends about your communication style.
• Engage in active listening, where you focus entirely on the speaker, understand their message, and respond thoughtfully.
• Practice empathy by considering others' perspectives and feelings.
• Participate in group activities or workshops that focus on communication and teamwork.

Developing these skills can help you understand yourself better, leading to improved interpersonal interactions.

People want to be feel that they have been understood and respected despite the content of a conversation. Poor interpersonal skills can prevent this from happening and lower the effectiveness of communication.

It’s important to develop these skills as they are required in your professional and personal life on a daily basis and a significant proportion of your life consists of interaction.