The Difference Between Dreams and Goals
The difference between dreams and goals comes down to one simple thing. Your Imagination…
You typically can’t comprehend the idea of what it takes to achieve a dream. In other words, dreams are only a fragment of your imagination, with no specifics. On the other hand, goals are S.M.A.R.T. That is, specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and time-bound. This doesn’t mean goals are better than dreams just because they are S.M.A.R.T. On the contrary, dreams motivate you to pursue goals once you become serious about making a dream a reality.
However, getting serious about a dream can be frustrating. Particularly when a dream is so big it causes analysis paralysis. Analysis paralysis is just a pithy way of describing how one overthinks a problem to the point where they do nothing. Unquestionably, doing nothing is a prolific dream killer.
To overcome analysis paralysis, you must start where your dream started, in your imagination. While your imagination helped you create your dream, it’s your lack of imagination that is causing your analysis paralysis. Specifically, analysis paralysis starts when you can’t figure out the goals you must achieve to get from where you are now to where your dream has you in your imagination. Therefore, the first step you must take to overcome analysis paralysis is to break this imagination barrier.
Breaking this barrier requires moving beyond the limitations of your mind. To do this you must have in-depth conversations with people who have achieved a dream similar to yours. If you can’t find someone to talk to directly, then you must learn everything possible about these people through research.
Either way, this is how you start. You must learn the steps others took to achieve a dream like yours and use that to break down your dream into S.M.A.R.T. goals you can visualize yourself achieving. So, although dreams and goals are very different, they are both necessary when you want to make productive use of your imagination.