Goals Bonus Article: Get Ready For Your Calling

This bonus article is inspired by a good friend of mine who popped round for a cup of tea the other day before returning to Texas after a visit to Brighton to graduate from her degree course.

We were talking about the (not so) New Year, our plans for 2010, and we got onto the subject of taking action in the pursuit of your dreams.

Since completing her degree and returning to Texas last year, my friend has spent the last few months filming a documentary about her adopted younger brother who has autism. She is very close to him, and for years, she carried a vague idea about one day illustrating the life-changing experience of having him in the family. Somehow, as often is the case, life got in the way of her starting it.

Up until the last couple of years, she admitted that even though deep down she wanted to work on such a project, she wouldn’t allow herself to think about it. She had no firm plans about how she would ever accomplish this goal, and was intimidated about making a commitment to achieving it.

One day after talking as she normally would about her brother, a close friend forced her to face up to her calling.

He asked her a simple question:

“Don’t you realise why you’re here?”

She paused, and in an emotional moment found herself for the first time answering it with honesty:

“I’m here to tell his story.”

She still had no firm plan mapped out, but she did have her goal. As she thought more directly about what it was she felt she wanted to achieve, opportunities began to dust themselves off and step out from the shadows.

Not because they hadn’t been there before, but because she hadn’t been ready to see them.

From completing a documentary class, to receiving a camera on loan for free (she had no money to make the documentary), to even meeting with an award winning film producer about the project, once she started focusing on the goal, momentum picked up and the adventure began.

She admitted that for years she had experienced anxiety and frustration feeling she was somehow unfulfilled and not living her life as her heart was telling her to.

Despite not having a meticulous plan with every detail worked out, she no longer feels this anxiety.

She has the faith that if she works towards this with passion and dedication, she’ll be able to figure it out as it happens. Although it’s scary, for her it’s nowhere near as frightening as the thought that she may never have begun this journey.

I love this as an example of how things can work out when you get focused about your dreams and take the plunge in following them.

To all those people reading this series and thinking about their own dreams and goals I wish you luck!

Keep believing.