I was staring at the spreadsheet and couldn’t believe my eyes. A dream, a small dream but still a dream, had just come true. In the past week I couldn’t have been looking at that spreadsheet more often if it were a picture of a Brad Pitt at the beach or a lotto slip for 1 million Euros!
A spreadsheet?
My Word of the year is “Build” and one of the things I want to build this year is a beautiful business. To help me and get my derrière kicked, I joined a program where we got the assignment to create a brand-new online course from scratch and start delivering the beta version. “When?” Oh, you have two weeks from now. Start finding participants. “How many?” At least 100.
When I first read this number, I nearly choked. 100??? I work with no more than a couple of clients at a time. How on earth… ?!?
100? (Imagine my voice going up one quint higher than usual)
Even if I was offering this beta-version for free, even if I could honestly say that I would give it my all to make this as useful and inspiring for all the participants, even if…
Come on, 100? Where? How?
It took me the better part of the first of those two weeks we had to pull myself together, but then I stepped up to it: it had always been clear for me that I wanted the right people in my course, (not some freebie-hunters or course hoppers). Now I knew that I wanted 100 of them.
Now, of course it didn’t matter per se if there were 1 or 10 or 100 in the course for me to go all in. That was not the dream. My dream was to prove to myself that I’m able to step up to this seemingly impossible challenge within a week!
It wouldn’t happen all by itself, that I knew. I took all kinds of actions which I’m not comfortable doing (you might as well take a look, now that they are out there :). I shared my story. I asked for help. I became visible. And slowly, slowly the spreadsheet, THE spreadsheet started to fill. From the very first lady (who subscribed with the very flattering reason: “Because it is you”), from ladies who have been with me and following my work since the start to complete strangers, from friends of friends and clients of clients, the list grew slowly but surely.
But: 100?? In a week? It seemed impossible, yet I stuck to it: to deliver an awesome course to 100 awesome ladies. I stubbornly visualised the number 100.
Enrollment for the course officially closed last Sunday at Midnight. On Sunday 11 pm, when I checked one last time before going to bed, the 100th lady signed up!
(Insert goosebumps).
You all know the saying “If you can dream it, you can do it”. I’d go even further and say: “In order to do it well, you have to dream it well first” or, to be completely clear:
You have to dream it in a precise way before you can do it.
Whatever “it” may be: arriving at 100 participants in a course, losing 10 kg, getting a raise, getting out of debt, finding a new partner, moving house, make new friends, up-leveling your appearance, starting a business, getting organised or whatever your dream is
Now, please let me make clear what I mean by precise: you need to have a clear picture of how your dream looks like, and even more importantly how it feels. You do NOT have to know exactly how you’ll go there. When you are firmly anchored in a clear dream, the actions to take will present themselves (and yes, they will almost certainly be uncomfortable), as they did and were for me.
When you have a CLEAR picture of who you want to be and how you want to feel and from that derives what you want to do and have, when you act then from that clear new standpoint, as the new person – then you will really discover what you are capable of doing.
As we started to explore the interaction between a person’s home and their life, I have been hammering into the course participants all week long that they NEED to start with a very clear vision of how they want to feel in their homes, and I want to share this message with all of you, my dear Elegant Alchemists:
Practice Clarity when it comes to your dreams. Do you have a big, middle or small dream for this week? Become very, VERY clear about it. Write it down. Think it through.
