What's Holding You back from your Dreams?

I had a weird dream last night.  

It's not the first time.  

As I come up on the one year anniversary of my divorce from Corporate America, I dreamed I was back at the company.  

What I liked about being back at work?  Steady paycheck.  Comfort in the routine.  The people.

Most importantly the people.

What I hated about the dream?

Routine.  Trapped.  Held hostage for nine hours a day by an idiot boss.

The steady paycheck wasn't enough to offset the loathing I felt having to suffer through days filled with pointless meetings where we met for meeting's sake.  We weren't allowed to have fun, because laughter was considered "not working."

Ridiculous.

I wish I wouldn't have waited.  I wish I would have started this journey in 2009, just like I planned.

But you know what they say about plans.  Man plans and God laughs.

There is always a price for waiting.  You have to determine if you are willing to pay it.  

Millions of Americans are working at corporate jobs they hate, where they can be fired or laid off with zero notice.  They have no safety net to catch them if they fall.  

They are miserable and mortgaging a future where they plan to do the things they love once they retire.

It's not a real life, or perhaps its more real life and I'm the delusional one.

So often people are in abusive relationships with the company they work for.  Bosses demean, bosses criticize, bosses "enforce policy" which outlines gray structures in black and white lines.

Have you ever thought, "I don't get paid enough for this."

Have you ever thought, "If I win the lottery, I'll quit."

Then you need to make a plan to divorce your job.  Start by saving some money from each paycheck.  Start your own business on the side while you still have the security of a bi-weekly income.  Quit watching television for 5 hours a week, and build your own business instead.

The price for waiting for me is pretty steep.

I have file cabinets full of unrealized manuscripts, short stories and screenplays just waiting for me to type up and publish.  Plus every day I come up with a new story idea for my SHADOWBOXER series, which I'm hard at work to develop and promote on Amazon.

Last night, I saw a press release for a story.

NAVY SEALS: NEW ORLEANS or something along those lines.  The tag line was Navy Seals are sent to New Orleans to fight a zombie outbreak.  I sighed and shook my head.

It's not QUITE my idea.  Mine was "An Army Reserve Unit fights a vampire outbreak after Katrina flooding unearths a nest of the undead."

But if I finished the story right after Katrina hit, it would be published and up on Amazon now.  Instead, it's sitting in a drawer, along with a couple of hundred others, just waiting for me to make time to write it up, edit, grab a cover and promote.

Along with my Zombie story about a Special Forces Team sent in to quell a Zombie outbreak on a river in Alabama. (Deliverance meets World War Z) and another Z outbreak set in Montana where folks gather to hide in a compound while Z's attack.

The price for waiting is someone else will make an idea just like yours.

They're not stealing the idea, because we're all exposed to the same media, the same music, the same news and we're all trying to conquer the same market of proven media consumers.

At least in my business.

So the longer you wait, the more disappointed you're going to be because other people will be working on "your" ideas.  Maybe you want to invent something.  There is a guy in his garage tinkering with the exact same thing right now.

Maybe you want to code an app.  There's a little girl writing code right now after school, and she wants to take you down.

Facebook is such a huge part of our lives right now, no one remembers that it was a poor contender to My Space for a couple of years, and fought off a slew of social sites trying to derail it's growth.

If Zuckerberg had waited, even for a moment, there might not be 752 million users today.  Every 5 seconds someone creates a new FB profile.

Which brings me back to your idea.

Make something and sell it.  Write a book.  Write a song.  Make a homemade quilt, or knit some beanies.

Whatever you think your idea is, you can not afford to wait to make it happen.

If your dream is to build a conglomerate ant farm that revolutionizes backyard agriculture, start blogging about it, find people interested and start talking to them about how they can help.

I'm amazed at how many people have told me they want to write a book, or start a business as a dream, and when I offer to help, backpedal right back into their cubicle.

Stop waiting to make your dream happen.

The longer you wait, the more life will pass by, and you will become numb, and existing for a day when you can retire and start living.

That makes zero sense.  Don't wait.

Do one thing today to make your dream start.  Here, I'll make it easy for you.  Comment below on what your dream/business is, and I'll tell you what the simple first step should be.

Stop waiting.

Start doing.

Anyway, I’ll be exploring a lot of this on my blog in the coming months. Many of the posts will debut on my Patreon page first. There’s already some exclusive content on that site as well about licensing and thought and changes.

If you feel like supporting the blog on an on-going basis, then please head to my Patreon page.

If you liked this post, and want to show your one-time appreciation, the place to do that is Venmo. If you go that route, please include your email address in the notes section, so I can say thank you.

Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!

Click Chris to go to Venmo.