By Dr. Luca Taverna - Mental Coach and training
Today I was reflecting on the difference between dreams and goals.
In the world of coaching in general - and of NLP in particular - there is the concept that anything is possible. A belief that I have personally shared since I was a boy. However, it will have happened to everyone, welcoming the new year, to have made one or more good intentions to carry on and then inexorably abandon them.
Walt Disney used to say "if you can think it, you can do it".
I also believe "that the power of the mind is amazing (otherwise I would not be here talking about mental coaching ...), and that very few are really able to guess what we could achieve if only we could exploit all the power of our mind.
Maxwell Maltz's Psychocybernetics, a science that anticipated many of the assumptions of NLP, discovered over 50 years ago that on average each of us uses less than 10% of our mental resources. Believing that man has greater potential than those attributed to us by anatomy books is undoubtedly good for the spirit and will support, I believe, the future development of humanity. Ignoring this possibility deprives us of many options.
Why am I telling you this? I'll explain this by asking you a question: how many times have you used the potential of the mind for your dreams or goals?
Without going too far, I am sure you have already heard about the importance of dreams and goals; therefore, at first glance, some of what I am about to tell you may seem familiar to you. , only to see all your motivations vanish when what you have undertaken has not been realized. Or, perhaps, you have obtained what you were chasing only to realize that it was not what you wanted and you said to yourself "that's all?"
However, do not give in to temptation, nor do you make the mistake of considering dreams and goals as trivial. Try to think about when you do a puzzle ... how long would it take without the "final result" image guiding you?
What is the first step when building a house? That's right: the design! Before even laying the first brick, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to build. Question: Would you get on a boat without a rudder? So why do we sometimes let our life drift without a destination?
Let's face it all from the beginning. What is the difference between a dream and a goal?
“A Goal is a dream with a deadline” Napoleon Hill said.
Let's start with an important concept: dreams are positive. Dreams are the projection of how we would like our lives to be. Thanks to dreams our life is better. Thanks to the dreams of some, many people today find health, work better, live better or even manage to achieve freedom.
What is important to understand is that everything around us started from a dream. However, a dream that took shape, turned into ideas, then into activities that subsequently became concrete actions, until this dream became reality. The dream to come true has turned into a goal.
Precisely for this reason, you are not very clear when they will come true, or if it will ever be possible that one day they will become reality.
But the dream is the first very important step.
And it's only when you start thinking about how to make that dream a reality, that that dream begins to take shape and turn into a goal.
A goal is active, concrete. In addition to understanding the "What" is your goal, it also focuses on the "How" to do to achieve it. You are responsible for the outcome, as the actions that will lead you to achieve it are yours. You have milestones to respect that will allow you to know whether or not you are close to your goal. The people who turn their dreams into reality are the ones who they turn those dreams into goals.
And in the next articles we will see how to turn our dreams into goals!
Now think for a second. We spend a lot of our life preparing ourselves culturally, technically and physically, but how much do we train and consolidate our mental, emotional and character "muscles"? How much do we use our mind to turn our dreams into goals and into reality?
I want to conclude by suggesting you a small one-minute test to test the potential of your mind by yourself:
while sitting or standing, extend one arm to your side. Raise it, always keeping it taut, at shoulder height, in front of you. Now rotate your arm sideways as if you were pointing to something behind you but keeping your torso locked, simply rotate your arm as far as it goes (without hurting yourself of course). Note the point of the wall (or of the environment that surrounds you) that your index finger is now pointing, that is, how far you have come with your arm outstretched.
Now return to normal position. Read through this paragraph and apply it later. Close your eyes and do mentally, only in your head, the whole movement ... the whole movement ... raise your arm, rotate it ... imagine it vividly. Only now instead of stopping at the point you were before, let your arm continue in the rotation, perhaps 4 or 5 fingers beyond the point where you had arrived. Watch all the movement in your head 2 or three times.
Now open your eyes, do it and be amazed.
This is just a small example of the potential and resources you already have within you now. Your happiness, your successes, or your fulfillment may be right there, beyond that point where you stopped before using your mind.
