(from the girl who kissed a frog)
As a professional coach, if I was to write a job description for myself, one of the "essential" parts of the job that I would include would be this: "Assist clients in making their dreams come true"
Recently, I took my sons to see Disney's new animated film, "The Princess and The Frog". This was a film about making your dream come true, and it espoused some of the lessons that I teach my clients when helping them to define and achieve their own lifestyle dreams or goals. The difference between a goal and a dream? Try this: A goal is a dream with a date on it.
I was enchanted by "The Princess and the Frog", a modern day take on an old classic with the star an African American girl called Tiana from the poor end of town in New Orleans. The messages within the movie were so delightfully presented and even better, they serve to illustrate my own three step process to achieving your lifestyle dreams.
Step one: "You gotta HAVE a dream!"
Tiana's dream is to own a restaurant. She's had the vision since she was a little girl, helping her daddy to cook at home. Tiana's father had a picture of a beautiful restaurant, full of smiling people and delicious looking food. The restaurant is opulent, decorated with chandeliers, sweeping staircases and populated with smart besuited waiters. He wrote on this picture "Tiana's Place".
Fast forward though the years and we see Tiana as a young woman. She's still looking at that (now rather tattered) piece of paper with "Tiana's Place" written on it. Every day when she comes home from work, she takes it out and looks at it and imagines how her restaurant will look. With the help of Disney animation, we go off into Tiana's multi sensory experience of her dream - sights, sounds, smells.. We see what Tiana will be wearing, the food she'll be serving, the fame of the restaurant, the buzz of the place... it's VIVID.
I teach my clients to define their vision i.e. their dream. You can do this in several ways. Write "A day in the life of", collect pictures, write a vision statement out each morning and read it out. The important thing is, like Tiana, to make your dream, your vision, as vivid as possible and to keep it in the forefront of your mind.
You have to hold onto that vision, even when you don't believe you can achieve it. On the hard days, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. On the hard days, it's even more important that you read it/look at it/write it/imagine it, even if you're doing it "by rote"
Step two: Do something
Nothing in life happens without you taking action. A dream without action will remain a dream. I'm not from the school of thought that says that things just come along in life without putting some effort in. I'm one of those old git types who bemoan the fact that so many youngsters these days believe that a life of fame and fortune awaits them if they just queue up for an audition on X Factor. Don't get me started on that...
Anyway, back to hard work! We all know deep down that those "overnight successes" we hear about aren't actually overnight successes. The successful person will invariably have worked for many years and tried many different things in order to achieve that success.
In The Princess and the Frog, we follow Tiana over the years working day shifts and night shifts in different restaurants as waitress and cook. She saves all her tips for the down payment on the derelict building that features as the setting for her restaurant dream. We see her collapsing on her bed each night after looking at her precious picture of "Tiana's Place". Whilst all of her friends are out having a good time, Tiana never stops working towards her dream, knowing that every shift at the diner, every cent in tips, is moving her closer towards that down payment.
Step three: Let go
I preach balance in all things. As Oscar Wilde said:"Everything in moderation, including moderation!" (Actually, that probably doesn't illustrate balance, but I love that quote and I've always wanted to use it!)
Tiana, as our heroine, has a fatal flaw (as all heroines must at some point in the story). Her fatal flaw is that she doesn't work in moderation, she works to excess. Tiana never lets her hair down, goes out with her friends or lets up from working towards her dream.
Then she meets her antithesis in Prince Naseem, who represents everything she's not: loucheness, extravagance, fun and drifting through life without any direction at all. Naseem asks her to dance and she tells him that she can't dance; she's been too busy working hard to achieve her dream to learn to dance.
Naturally, as the movie nears its dénouement (I don't think I'll spoil the ending here -it's Disney, so it's obviously not going to be a sad ending), Tiana has to give up on her dream and it looks as if it's all going to hell in a handcart. As soon as she lets go of that neediness and that single minded drive towards her dream and accepts life as it is, that's when the Disney magic happens! Tiana achieves her dream, of course. To find out how and what happens to her along the way, you'll have to go and see the film yourself!
John Lennon said: "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Too right John! We have to live each moment of our lives now, and the more we can find happiness and joy in the life we are living today, the more space we create for the magic to happen to us.
So, in summary, your three steps to achieving your dream, from the girl who kissed a frog, are:
Photo Credit: Krystn Palmer Photography
As a professional coach, if I was to write a job description for myself, one of the "essential" parts of the job that I would include would be this: "Assist clients in making their dreams come true" Recently, I took my sons to see Disney's new animated film, "The Princess and The Frog". This was a film about making your dream come true, and it espoused some of the lessons that I teach my clients when helping them to define and achieve their own lifestyle dreams or goals. The difference between a goal and a dream? Try this: A goal is a dream with a date on it.
I was enchanted by "The Princess and the Frog", a modern day take on an old classic with the star an African American girl called Tiana from the poor end of town in New Orleans. The messages within the movie were so delightfully presented and even better, they serve to illustrate my own three step process to achieving your lifestyle dreams.
Step one: "You gotta HAVE a dream!"
Tiana's dream is to own a restaurant. She's had the vision since she was a little girl, helping her daddy to cook at home. Tiana's father had a picture of a beautiful restaurant, full of smiling people and delicious looking food. The restaurant is opulent, decorated with chandeliers, sweeping staircases and populated with smart besuited waiters. He wrote on this picture "Tiana's Place".
Fast forward though the years and we see Tiana as a young woman. She's still looking at that (now rather tattered) piece of paper with "Tiana's Place" written on it. Every day when she comes home from work, she takes it out and looks at it and imagines how her restaurant will look. With the help of Disney animation, we go off into Tiana's multi sensory experience of her dream - sights, sounds, smells.. We see what Tiana will be wearing, the food she'll be serving, the fame of the restaurant, the buzz of the place... it's VIVID.
I teach my clients to define their vision i.e. their dream. You can do this in several ways. Write "A day in the life of", collect pictures, write a vision statement out each morning and read it out. The important thing is, like Tiana, to make your dream, your vision, as vivid as possible and to keep it in the forefront of your mind.
You have to hold onto that vision, even when you don't believe you can achieve it. On the hard days, you just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other. On the hard days, it's even more important that you read it/look at it/write it/imagine it, even if you're doing it "by rote"
Step two: Do something
Nothing in life happens without you taking action. A dream without action will remain a dream. I'm not from the school of thought that says that things just come along in life without putting some effort in. I'm one of those old git types who bemoan the fact that so many youngsters these days believe that a life of fame and fortune awaits them if they just queue up for an audition on X Factor. Don't get me started on that...
Anyway, back to hard work! We all know deep down that those "overnight successes" we hear about aren't actually overnight successes. The successful person will invariably have worked for many years and tried many different things in order to achieve that success.
In The Princess and the Frog, we follow Tiana over the years working day shifts and night shifts in different restaurants as waitress and cook. She saves all her tips for the down payment on the derelict building that features as the setting for her restaurant dream. We see her collapsing on her bed each night after looking at her precious picture of "Tiana's Place". Whilst all of her friends are out having a good time, Tiana never stops working towards her dream, knowing that every shift at the diner, every cent in tips, is moving her closer towards that down payment.
Step three: Let go
I preach balance in all things. As Oscar Wilde said:"Everything in moderation, including moderation!" (Actually, that probably doesn't illustrate balance, but I love that quote and I've always wanted to use it!)
Tiana, as our heroine, has a fatal flaw (as all heroines must at some point in the story). Her fatal flaw is that she doesn't work in moderation, she works to excess. Tiana never lets her hair down, goes out with her friends or lets up from working towards her dream.
Then she meets her antithesis in Prince Naseem, who represents everything she's not: loucheness, extravagance, fun and drifting through life without any direction at all. Naseem asks her to dance and she tells him that she can't dance; she's been too busy working hard to achieve her dream to learn to dance.
Naturally, as the movie nears its dénouement (I don't think I'll spoil the ending here -it's Disney, so it's obviously not going to be a sad ending), Tiana has to give up on her dream and it looks as if it's all going to hell in a handcart. As soon as she lets go of that neediness and that single minded drive towards her dream and accepts life as it is, that's when the Disney magic happens! Tiana achieves her dream, of course. To find out how and what happens to her along the way, you'll have to go and see the film yourself!
John Lennon said: "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." Too right John! We have to live each moment of our lives now, and the more we can find happiness and joy in the life we are living today, the more space we create for the magic to happen to us.
So, in summary, your three steps to achieving your dream, from the girl who kissed a frog, are:
- Define your lifestyle dream in vivid Disney Technicolor and burn that image into your brain, your heart and your soul.
- Make a plan to achieve your dream, no matter how far away or how impossible it may seem now. Keep taking baby steps forward, just as Tiana saved her tips for many years.
- In the meantime, live the life you have now, rejoice in it, enjoy each moment, kick off your shoes and dance with life. Then, when you're least expecting it, the magic will happen!
Photo Credit: Krystn Palmer Photography
