Do you have a dream?

Of course you do, we all have dreams, we all at some stage have or have had a vision to be an olympic athlete, to be a successful business and / or career person, to be rich and famous, to be a loving parent or partner, to be an integral member of the community etc.

Stop for one minute and answer the following questions:

What is your dream(s)?

Have you achieved your dream(s) yet?

If not, why not?

For most people what stops us from achieving our dreams are the following;

1) We are not 100% clear on what our dream is and because of this we fail to commit our energy towards it, purely because we do not know exactly what we are committing to.

2) We do not resonate with our dreams. What does resonate mean? Essentially our dreams already exist and vibrate at a certain wave frequency. The best way to work out what the wave frequency (or resonance) of your dream is, is to ask yourself the following question; how would I feel if I could be, do or have my dream now? The feelings you list will give you the clues to the wave frequency of your dreams and the only reason you do not have this dream now is because at some level you are not resonating (or vibrating) on the same wave length as the dream and the feelings that having it would give you. Often our resonance can be affected by our subconscious resistance to the dream. This resistance is often expressed through our fears.

3) Our perception of the truth and how we choose to believe about what is happening to us at any given moment can stop us from having our dreams. We place our own filter (called our belief system) on the truth and from this create our external reality (through our behaviours) to support this perception. Whether it is true or false our thinking will make it so.

If you have a belief that you are not good enough and therefore not worthy or deserving of your dreams then any time you begin to pursue your dreams at some stage in the process you will always sabotage the outcome because of your underlying belief(s). These beliefs may be very old and you may not even be aware of them but if you are not achieving all that you want in your life, then it is highly likely there is a belief pattern(s) holding you back.

For example; studies show that most poor people who win the lottery will be poor again (no matter how much money they win) within two years of winning the money. Why is this? Well the underlying thoughts, feelings, beliefs and behaviours of a poor person will ensure they spend the money to return them to the reality that was true for them before they won the lottery. In this case, the belief system that they are not good enough, not worthy and therefore undeserving of the new found riches.

Another example involves Christopher Columbus;

When conventional wisdom proclaimed as fact the world was flat, he held the extreme notion that he could sail over the edge and land in China instead of deep space. This rebel sailed his clipper ships where no one had ever gone before - and reshaped people's view of the world! More on this below…

4) Our fears. For most of us our grand visions become minimised by our fears and we end up settling for second best. We aim for a target that is half as fulfilling as the original dream we once desired. Often we even make excuses by saying "yeah but I am not sure if that dream was what I really wanted and besides, every time I put my energy into achieving it, it never bears any fruit and it just feels like too much hard work" Sound familiar?

Do you ever feel like your fears have got in the way of your best intentions? Not to worry, below is a sure fire way of helping you to overcome your fears.

The Good News:

Essentially all challenges we face on an external level are manifestations of our internal way of thinking, feeling and believing and are actually there for us to find a "gift" from which (once learned) we will grow and develop to a whole new level of ability and reality.

The easiest ways to achieve your dreams and remove the fears that are holding you back include:

1) Get 100% clear on what your dream is.

What does it look like? Feel Like? Sound Like? Taste Like? Smell Like? And Why do you want to achieve this dream?

2) Commit 100% to thinking only the thoughts, feeling only the feelings, believing only the beliefs and behaving only the behaviours that will make this dream a reality.

Regardless of what you may actually be perceiving in your external reality. Remember what you are observing is not necessarily the truth.

For example: Five centuries ago, Europeans reacted with disbelief when they heard that the world is round but Columbus made another equally mind-popping discovery. His revelation is about the power of cultural belief systems and how people see only what they believe they will see. And, like the Europeans, most people of our time want to discard Columbus' radical news as rubbish.

Columbus' arrival in the New World revealed how cultural belief systems determine what people see - or don't see. Columbus found that the native people in this new land couldn't see his clipper ships. The natives were unable to see the big ships because they didn't believe that big ships existed!

You See What You Believe

In 1492, Columbus landed on the island of Hispaniola, now the countries of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Until Columbus' arrival, the islanders had only seen and heard of small boats - like their own canoes. The tribe had never seen nor heard of large ocean-going sea craft. So when the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria arrived, the natives couldn't see the big ships of Christopher Columbus! And the vessels were floating in plain sight right off shore!

"I Don't See Any Big Ships!"

Why couldn't the islanders see the big boats? Because nobody in their culture had ever seen big boats before. And nobody had ever written or talked about big boats in their society.

In any culture, the mythmakers - teachers, historians and media - decide people's reality. The specific world that mythmakers talk and write about determines the aspects of reality that people are able to perceive. The world that these storytellers talk and write about creates a belief system unique to each culture. And this belief system acts as a filter, screening out realities that don't fit into the cultural conditioning of the society.

The myth keepers who shaped the islanders' belief systems didn't recognize the possibility that large ships might exist. And the filter of this belief prevented the natives from seeing the three large sea vessels. At first!

Three Keys for observing the real truth:

The island shaman wasn't able to see the ships when they first arrived. Like his tribes people, the shaman medicine man wasn't able to see past the filters of his cultural conditioning.

But unlike the common folk of his tribe, the medicine man was educated by radical myth makers - shaman elders. These non-conformist teachers were always exploring "new worlds."

From these elders, the shaman learned that a person only sees the elements in the world that the person's mind has been exposed to. The ego-mind filters out realities that don't fit its picture of what exists in the world. But the shaman also learned from his teachers how to bypass the limitations of the ego-mind.
The elders gave the shaman these 3 keys to help him see "outside the box" of his belief system - to perceive the world as it really exists.

Key 1 - Look for a Different Pattern

The 1st key, made famous in the movie Star Wars, is to notice "a disturbance in the force."

Anchored just offshore, Columbus' ships are creating out-of-the-ordinary patterns in the ocean waves. Even though he can't see the ships, the observant shaman does notice unexplained variations in the waves.

Key 2 - Don't Listen to Your Mind!

Curious, the shaman investigates the unusual wave patterns. As he begins his inquiry, he uses the 2nd key: "Don't trust your mind!"

Generations of medicine men and women have passed down this key to happiness. The 2nd key alerts the shaman to the limitations of his ego-mind. The shaman understands that his mind only perceives realities that his mind has been exposed to by his culture. Limited by its belief system, the mind is unaware of a boundless world teeming with unfiltered possibilities.

Key 3 - Open to New Possibilities

From his elders, the medicine man learned that any unusual pattern in our world always indicates that something has changed in our reality. But, in this instance, the shaman is not yet seeing the specific element that has been added or taken away. In order to see what element has changed, he lets go of how his ego-mind "thinks" the world operates. He opens himself to making a fresh discovery - the 3rd key.

As a result of deciding to allow new possibilities into his life, the shaman sees the cause of the peculiar patterns: the never-before-imagined clipper ships! As soon as the shaman perceives the large ships, he tells his tribe the ships exist and points to exactly where they are. The rest of the islanders are then able to perceive the vessels.

And Finally…

4) Minimise your fears by removing the stress associated with the imagined future event that you are fearing. You can use a number of tools to do this and one of the easiest and most powerful ones I recommend is Emotional Freedom Technique or EFT.

For more information on how EFT can help you to remove your fears and your old belief patterns you may want to visit my website at www.activateyourlife.com.au as it is an integral tool I use in my workshops and coaching programs, with some life changing results having been experienced by our clients.

Author's Bio: 

Hi there, my name is Andrew McCombe and I am the Owner and Managing Director of Activate Your Life.

In 1997, I moved to Australia, from New Zealand with a Bachelor of Physical Education (BPhEd) Degree from the University of Otago to pursue my dream of representing my country at the 2000 Olympics in the sport of Beach Volleyball.

To fund my beach volleyball career I decided to use my formal qualifications and my passion for health, fitness and wellbeing to set up a personal fitness training studio in beautiful Manly. Very soon my beach volleyball career was put on hold as my business had quickly grown to owning and managing three health clubs in Sydney.

Looking back I realized I had a real passion and talent for creating and growing businesses and a strong desire to empower individuals, teams and businesses to perform at the highest level, in a simple, balanced and fulfilling manner.

I now project the Activate Your Life message in the following ways:

- I am a Life, Business and High Performance Coach which I combine with my expertise as an Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) Practitioner.

- I regularly present Health, Wealth, Relationship, Career and Business Workshops and Retreats.

- I am the author and self publisher of the Activate Your Life book and the on-going Activate Your Life book series.

- I am a regular columnist and contributor for a number of Australasia's largest publications, including Mens' Style, 50's Lifestyle, Franchise Magazine, Femme Fitness, NZ Fitness, Beauty NZ, That's Life, Vogue, Cleo, Who Weekly, Marie Claire and Universal Wellbeing.

- I am an ambassador for Grand United Corporate Health Insurance, National Australia Bank’s AdvantEdge Program, the Telstra My Rewards Program and the Your Health Integrative Medicine Centres.

Today I live the life that I designed for myself many years ago. I spend half of my day playing beach volleyball and I spend the other half of my day empowering thousands of other people to perform at their best in their personal and professional lives, through the Activate Your Life vehicle.

I am passionate about supporting you to design and build your ideal business and team, so if you are 100% committed to performing at the highest level, then I look forward to supporting you to make it a reality.

Here's to living a simple, balanced and fulfilling life of EASE.

Andrew McCombe