Turn Your CAN’Ts into COULDs

Are We Sabotaging Our Dreams by Believing That They’re Impossible for Us?

You know that one dream you’ve really been thinking about for a while now? Why don’t you go for it?

It happens all the time. We go about our day and notice things and experiences we would like to have in our lives. But before we’ve even given ourselves the chance to plant the first seed, we give up on the idea and write it off as impossible. If someone asks why we don’t go for it, we reply with “I can’t just______.”

Have you examined the reasons why you can’t?

Has someone else been able to achieve it? Is it truly a mission impossible or are you deciding that the time and effort you would need to put in is not worth it to you?

Ideas can be turned into reality over time. Statues can be molded out of clay. When we forget this, we resort to I CAN’T as our excuse for deciding to not go after a dream.

The Odds Are That Your Dream Is Possible

I bet that if we drilled down into the things you want to do, we would find that 9 out of 10 are actually possible and can be done — just not immediately. They will require time and effort.

The question then becomes how deeply we desire turning that vision into reality versus the time and effort required to get there.

When we decide not to take an action that would move us closer to our dreams, it is often out of fear. It might not work out, we could fail, we could get hurt. Our brain naturally wants to protect us from the danger of the unknown. That is why it feels better to keep things status quo, to live out the same comfortable routines day by day instead of pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zones. After all that is where the danger lies, that is where the lion could jump out from behind the bushes and attack us…unless he doesn’t.

But if we never leap from the edge, how will we ever know that we can fly?

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t — you’re right.” — Henry Ford

We will never be fully ready. Sometimes we just have to trust in something greater and leap anyway.