Amey Hegde

A few years back, on a sunny Sunday morning, I visited Palolem beach along with my cousins. The moment we reached the beach, we could see a lovely deserted island popularly known as Monkey Island (marked as Kankon Island on Google maps). We had a great time playing on the beach; it was a very secluded and clean beach those days. The island alluringly beckoned to us and we decided to take a closer look at it. We walked towards a rocky area as the villagers told us we could wade across from there to Monkey Island in low tide. However, when we reached the rocks we found that the water between us and the island was neck deep and the current was very strong. We decided not be take a risk, dropped the idea of visiting the island and instead sat down on the rocks to enjoy the view of the sea. It was a nice experience watching the sea, the waves, the rocks and the spray. After a while we noticed that a little further ahead, an old man in rags was fishing using a homemade fishing rod. He seemed to have had a bad day as there were only 3-4 small fish lying in a plastic bag next to him. We felt sorry for him and hoped that he would catch a big fish soon. After a few minutes, our prayers were answered and he reeled in a big fish. We felt happy thinking he would be able to eat a good meal today. However, to our utter dismay, he removed the big fish from the hook and threw it back into the water. We were shocked! We asked him “Why did you throw the big fish back?” He gave us a toothless grin and said “I only have a tiny tavo (frying pan) at home”.

After a good laugh, one of my cousins advised the old man to buy a bigger frying pan. Another cousin suggested that if he is unable to afford a new pan, he should cut the big fish into small pieces before frying it!

This is not a true story; also, this article is not about fishing and frying pans, but about following our big dreams. Like the old man threw back the big fish as it would not fit his tiny frying pan, we often dismiss our big dreams because we feel that they are too big to fit our existing mindsets and abilities.

Let us apply the two approaches suggested above to follow and achieve our big dreams.

Approach 1: Get a bigger frying pan

a. Boost your self-confidence to achieve your big dream:

A strong belief in yourself and your abilities provides a firm foundation to achieve success. Zig Ziglar, the world's foremost authority on motivation says “When your image improves, your performance improves”. Here are a couple of tips to boost ones self-image and self-confidence.

• Look at your past achievements: Think about what you have already achieved in your life so far. List the 10 best things you have achieved in an achievement log. Make sure that you enjoy a few minutes reflecting on your greatest achievements.

• Think about your strengths: Make a list of your top strengths to understand what you do well. Find out what other people see as your strengths and top abilities. Read this list of strengths to feel more confident in your ability to achieve your big dream.

b. Ensure that your big dream motivates you.

Ensure that your big dream is important to you and is in “sync” with your top values in life. When your actions and top values are in harmony, you perform at your best. Also, if you are very interested in the outcome then the chances of you putting in the work to make it happen are higher.

c. Acquire new skills and abilities needed to achieve your dream
According to Jim Rohn, America's Foremost Business Philosopher, “You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills.”

Identify the skills you will need to achieve your big dream and look at how you can acquire these skills well. Brian Tracy, the most listened to audio author on personal and business success in the world today, says “No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals.” Seek out experienced people and experts who already have the skills and qualities you wish to acquire and learn from them.

Approach 2: Cut the fish into small pieces

If you look at your big dream, achieving it might seem overwhelming at the first glance. Remember the rule of divide and conquer and break down the big dream into smaller, more manageable goals. One of my participants, Rajesh has a life time dream to become the head of department of the maintenance department in his company. I worked with him to help him break down his lifetime career goal as follows.
• Five-year goal: "Become a maintenance manager"
• Three-year goal: "Volunteer for projects that the current Head of Department is heading."
• One-month goal: "Join a distance learning/part-time program and complete my engineering degree."
• One-month goal: "Talk to the current head of department to determine what skills and qualities are needeto do the job."
• One-week goal: "Book the meeting with the head of department."

As you can see from the above example, breaking your big dream down into smaller goals makes it appear much more manageable and easier to achieve. Rajesh’s lifetime goal “become the head of department” looks overwhelming; however his one-week goal “Book a meeting with the head of department to discuss the skills needed to do the job” seems very manageable. Think about something that you can do within one month, what you can do this week and what you can finally do today to achieve that big dream of yours.

Remember, that big dream of yours is waiting for you to pursue it. Cast your line and reel in that big dream!

Amey Hegde is an internationally certified Corporate Behavioral Trainer, Motivational Speaker, Management Consultant and an internationally published Author. All the quotes by great thinkers used in this article are from his book “Inspire to Reach Higher.” Amey can be contacted at amey.hegde@gmail.com, http://ameyhegde.in.

Posted on: 20-06-2012