Stop Chasing Your Dreams, Do This Instead.

Even though they never usually mean it, our parents, friends, colleagues, and everyone else we know will tell us to chase our dreams.

No successful person didn’t reach them, and no unsuccessful person didn’t let them die. One thing is for certain, we all have them. 

Chasing your dreams is a very powerful motivator that can get you through the tough times that come with doing so, it can make determination, discipline, grit and desire feel and look as natural and automated as breathing and can take you a very long way. 

However, chasing your dreams pulls you somewhere, and that pull could run slack at any moment.

Although the title says do this instead, it’s doing it as well, I’d never suggest you stop chasing your dreams, but I would suggest you adjust your focus onto something a lot more powerful.

Doing This Instead 

I heard of a study a while ago and it’s stuck with me ever since.

Starving rats were placed in a tube with something attached that could measure the rat's pull, they then put cheese at the front of the tube and upon smelling it, the rat pulls hard.

However, they then put a cat behind the tube, and upon catching the scent of that, the rat pulled much harder.

The cheese is your goal, but the cat is your fear.

You need to not only run towards a version of yourself that you want, you need to run away from a version of yourself that you don’t.

By only chasing something, you’re giving yourself the option of giving up, and the only thing you’d be sacrificing is your goal.

However, with the added element of fear, stopping is no longer an option, as you wouldn’t just be sacrificing your goals, you’d be living your worst nightmare. 

Think of the term self-improvement, you’re improving, but there have always been two elements to this equation. The person you’re trying to be, and the person you’re trying not to be.

Keeping The Fear Alive

If there have always been these two sides to self-improvement, then why do so many people still give up? 

This depends on one thing, how they view who they currently are. 

See, without strongly disliking who or where you currently are, changing yourself is optional, and if it’s optional, the discomfort of doing so will more than likely stop you soon enough without much of a fight.

So, to add the second element and make it strong enough to push us forward, we need to figure out how to view our current selves with fear, we need to be scared of staying the same.

This all comes down to comparison, we are social beings and without even realising it, we are constantly scanning and analysing what other people are doing, saying, wearing, etc.

Just think of a time you have worn something you weren't too sure about, whats the first thing you do on arrival? You see what everyone else is wearing, and then you either feel better, or worse, deepening on the answer. 

Therefore, it becomes pretty difficult to view ourselves with the needed disgust when everyone else is either the same or worse. If failing at becoming better means we become like everyone else, we won't fear it.

I would say that the only person worth comparing yourself to is yourself, which although is true, it's just not strong enough to keep us going, if it were, everyone would be trying to be better.

I’m not saying we should literally hate ourselves, I’m saying we need to hate where we are and what we do. Hating our current selves is one of the strongest forms of self-love, as we admit to ourselves that we are capable of more and agree to attempt to reach that potential. 

You hate the fact that you struggle to wake up in the morning without snoozing four times, hating it doesn’t mean verbally abusing yourself for the rest of the day, hating it means desperately trying to change it.

You want to have the cat as well as the cheese, which will make it so much easier to reach your goals.

Remember, you need to fear whatever it is you’re trying to change, whether it’s what you do, where you do it, or how you do it. To create or keep the fear alive, never compare yourself with the people around you if they don’t have and are not where you want to be yourself.

Go find your cat.