Gloria Steinem — Dreaming

Most of us underestimate the power and importance of dreaming — whether we are talking about day dreaming or sleep dreaming. Sleep dreaming is one of my favorite times, especially in the twilight world between being awake or being asleep. Dreams can feel so real and meaningful. 

Years ago I kept a dream journal where I would record my dreams. I have documented proof that I dreamed of marrying my wife a month before I met her. So I do believe that dreams can predict the future. I have experienced the excitement of possibilities. Dreams are small windows into our souls.

Day dreaming is a way to explore your options and to find the right path. Day dreaming helps creative leaders make decisions and take action. As Steinem says, day dreaming is a form of planning, a way of preparing for what is to come. Our minds are very powerful and we can see things with our mind's eye before they happen.

Have you ever gone to sleep thinking of some problem and woke up with the answer? You need to learn to harness the power of your dreams to help you creatively solve problems. You need to increase your involvement with dreams. 

My wife at a very young age discovered that she had the ability to consciously change her dreams. If she did not like where her dreams were going she would change them while dreaming. Today we call it lucid dreaming.

Theodore Roethke — Being, not doing

I must confess that being is very difficult for me. For years I have been caught up in the culture of doing — setting goals and working to achieve those goals. I find it very difficult to sit and just be. I must at the very least doodle. If I go on vacation, it often takes me a week to relax and forget my day job. But I still feel I must be doing something. Write. Draw. Read. Produce something of value. Rarely can I just be.  I simply cannot sit and doing nothing.  My thoughts continue to flow.

How about you? Are you caught up in the culture of doing or have you learned like Roethke to enjoy just being?

Here is my favorite Theodore Roethke poem. I love the first three lines. This is a poem to be read out loud. Listen to the interaction of sounds.

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Jim Rohn — Discipline

We all have dreams and most of us never act on our dreams.  We find excuses and reasons why we can't do something.  We focus on all the obstacles we see in front of us.  Dreams may inspire us to act for a day or two, but it takes discipline to keep writing and painting.  And this goes for successful writers and painters as well as beginners.  



I have read stories of successful writers and painters who stop working.  The first book or two made them a celebrity and they never finish the next book.  They get caught up in the celebrity of being a writer.  Being a creative leader requires discipline to sit down at the computer, to stand at that easel, or to sit at the piano.  

Do you have the discipline to accomplish your dreams?  Do you rise before everyone in your family so that you can spend an hour or two working on your art?  Or do you stay up after everyone else has gone to bed?  Do you do what many others only dream about?  



Creative leaders can become easily sidetracked by the next creative thought or the next creative idea. We are attracted to the energy within new creative ideas. It is a emotional high and can be addictive. If we are not careful we will jump from one idea to the next and never finish what we have started. Creative leaders must master the art of self-discipline if they are to be successful.

Are you struggling with your dreams or have you mastered the art of self-discipline? Do you procrastinate and never finish what you start or do you bring your projects in on time? Do you let the pleasure of the moment keep you from doing the work you were meant to do? Do you let the joy of new ideas get in the way of completing your work? Remember self-discipline is the key to your success.

Dr. Benjamin Mays — Goals

Research shows that only about 2% of Americans write goals.  I was 35 years old when I first heard about the importance of goal-setting in achieving one's dreams. In college I had dreamed of being a writer but at 35 was far from my dream. I had only written about 200 poems in 15 years. I set a goal to write a poem a day for a year. That year I wrote over 400 poems.

If you want to achieve your dreams, you need to turn them into goals.  Goals are dreams with deadlines.  Some creative leaders don't want to set goals because they are afraid they will not reach them. But the truth is that people achieve more when they have goals then when they don't. You may not reach the goal you set but you will come closer than if you had no goal. And as many people learn, the joy is in working to achieve the goal, not in actually achieving it. And when goal-setters reach their goal, they quickly set a new goal. 

I once met a 101 year old man who was writing his first book using a laptop computer in a nursing home. I visited that nursing home a couple of years later and the man, then 103, was writing his second book. What goals have you set for yourself? Your work? Your life?

Dr. Benjamin Mays must have been a master goal-setter for all that he accomplished. Mays was the youngest of eight children born to tenant farmers and former slaves in South Carolina. He earned a B.A. from Bates College in Maine, a Masters and a Ph.d in religion from the University of Chicago. He received almost 30 honorary doctorates in his lifetime. He was an ordained Baptist minister and an educator. He became President of Morehouse College in 1940, a post he held for 27 years. Mays wrote nearly 2,000 articles and nine books includingThe Negro's Church, the first sociological study of African-American religion. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who graduated from Morehouse in 1948, called Mays his "spiritual mentor" and "intellectual father." 

Childhood home of Benjamin Mays

Milton Berle — Build a Door

Many times we have to make our own opportunities. People often complain that they were not given a chance. They fall into "If Only"thinking: "If only I could have gone to school." "If only my boss would have promoted me." "If only my parents loved me." "If only I had a job." "If only someone would publish my book." If only. . . . If only. . . . If only. . . . 

If you are going to achieve your dreams and accomplish your goals, you must move beyond "If Only" thinking to "Opportunity" thinking. You must build your own doors and knock on them.

What doors can you build today that you can knock on tomorrow? Building the door to opportunity does not just happen by accident. It takes hard work, belief in oneself and persistence.

Wilma Rudolph

We all have dreams, things that we want to accomplish in our lives, but many of us give up too soon. We don't have the commitment to achieve what we dream of achieving. To be an artist in a world where you have to have a 9 - 5 job in order to pay the bills requires commitment. You have to get up earlier than everyone else or go to bed later than everyone else in your family. You have to steal minutes wherever you can to write, to draw, to paint, to dance. 

Sometimes we have to create in isolation, without contact with other creative souls. We have to force ourselves to write even when our body and mind is finding ways to procrastinate. Many of us don't have people in our lives encouraging us to create. In fact, we may have people telling us to get a real job. We have to be our own coach and cheerleader. We have to be willing to do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do? Have you the commitment to be a creative leader?

Discipline is one of the keys to being an artist or a writer. One needs to work every day. People often say: "I work when I am inspired." If you wait until you are inspired, you will be waiting a long time. If you work whether you are inspired or not, you will find that soon inspiration will become a constant companion. Work opens up the creative spirit and the inspiration flows. So my message is simple: work every day even if it is for only 15 minutes.

Success comes from work. Work when you are sad. Work when you are happy. Work when you don't feel like it. Work when you want to go to a movie. Our minds are very good at finding excuses for not working. "I have to do the dishes." "I have to wash the clothes." And the list goes on. Work takes discipline and will power. 

Since you have no boss but yourself, you have to hold yourself accountable. Schedule your hours when you are most creative and stick to your schedule. Maybe you write between 5 am and 6 am. Or if you have the luxury, schedule your work hours from 8 am to 5 pm with an hour off for lunch. Some writers write in the morning and do their research and marketing in the afternoon. You have to find the schedule that best fits your temperament.

Creative leaders sometimes struggle with discipline. They procrastinate. They know they should pick up the pen and write or pick up the paint brush and paint, but they find excuses. When you find yourself procrastinating, remember what you want. What is your dream? What is it you want to accomplish? Why are you here? Focus on your goals and you will have the discipline to do what you need to do.

We all have dreams and goals but many of us never achieve them because we have not mastered the art of self-discipline. I define self-discipline as sacrificing short-term pleasure for the achievement of long-term goals. If you want to be a novelist but you never seem to find the time to write, you will never write your novel. If you want to be a painter but spend your time partying with friends and not painting, you may never produce any great paintings. The arts require a lot of self-discipline. We need to be able to sacrifice the pleasure of the moment for the achievement of long-term success.

What are you willing to sacrifice for your creative work? What are you willing to give up? Life is never easy. There are many days when you will take one step forward and three backwards. Do you have the stubbornness to keep going even when you see very little light at the end of the tunnel?

The creative arts are not for the weak of will. The creative arts require commitment, persistence and self-discipline in the face of cold-hearted rejection. Do you have the self-discipline to stay focused when the world is screaming that you should quit and find a normal line of work? Do you have the strength to keep going when you have received 250 rejection letters? How long are you willing to wait for success? Two years? Five years? Ten? Twenty?

Zig Ziglar

Note to Reader:

(This blog post marks the fifth anniversary of my blog, Monday Morning Motivation.  I wrote my first post on August 7, 2010.  The first two years I posted daily.  The last three years I have posted weekly.  I have received over a quarter of a million page views during these five years.  So, thanks to everyone who has stopped by.)





I was 35 years old when I first heard about the importance of goal-setting in achieving one's dreams. In college I had dreamed of being a writer but at 35 was far from my dream. I had only written about 200 poems in 15 years. I set a goal to write a poem a day for a year. That year I wrote over 400 poems.

Now, after more than 30 years of setting goals and writing thousands of poems, I have come to understand what Ziglar means in this quote.  The person I have become through the process of struggling to achieve my goals is more important than whether I did or did not achieve my goals.  The journey, as others have said, is more important than the destination.



So, how has achieving my goals made me a better person, a better writer?  Has my journey been more important then my destination?  



My creative journey has given me a greater appreciation for the struggle of all creative individuals.  I understand what it means to be an artist or a writer.  I am less willing to criticize the creative works of others.  Yes, some of us may be more skilled than others, but we all have creative forces running through our veins.  I know what it means to put pen to paper or paint brush to canvas and not find an audience for my work.



I have a greater appreciation of the creative energy that drives my being.  If I don't write or draw, I become melancholy.  I need to expend my creative energy.  The more I create the happier I become.  Failure to create leaves me lifeless, empty.



I have gained the ability to create anywhere and anytime.  I can write a poem while sitting in a mall while my wife shops.  I can write in church while the minister is preaching.  I can doodle while sitting in a business meeting.  I can take a walk at 6 a.m. and compose a poem.  Creating works of art has for me become a way of life, not a destination.



And most importantly, through my creativity I have found spiritual healing and understanding.  As a teenager, I was troubled by the hypocrisy of church members.  Writing has helped me see beyond the hypocrisy and to gain an understanding of the hearts of others.  I am a better person for the time I have spent creating.



Have you set goals for your creative journey?  Have you come to understand that the journey is more important than the destination?

About Zig Ziglar

1926 - 2012

Hilary Hinton Ziglar was the tenth of twelve children born to John Silas Ziglar and Lila Wescott Ziglar.  When Ziglar was five, his family moved to Yazoo City, Mississippi where he spent most of his early childhood.  His father and sister died a year later.  Ziglar served in the United States Navy during World War II.  He married his wife, Jean, in 1946.

Zig Ziglar began his career as a salesman and eventually moved into motivational speaking. He wrote and published more than a dozen books including See you at the Top, Secrets of Closing the Sale and Confessions of a Happy Christian.