15 Secrets to Overcoming the Dark Side of Dreaming
Lofty dreams have a dark side when they devalue slow, incremental progress.
Don’t wait for giant leaps toward noble dreams.
Successful leaders bringing dreams to life in the present.
Warning: Big dreams don’t guarantee success.
Unsuccessful dreamers:
- Can’t figure out what to do today.
- Wonder what’s wrong with others when they don’t “get it.”
- Resist structure, process, and organization.
- Grow negative when progress is slow.
- Dwell on what’s wrong.
- Don’t celebrate the achievements of others. Aspiration minimizes affirmation.
- Think of people as a means to an end.
- Struggle getting on someone elses team.
- Don’t have time to develop people.
- Run to the next thing before the first thing gets off the ground.
Successful dreamers:
- Rise above the thought that telling inspires people.
- Respect the power of connection. Move forward in relationship.
- Embrace diversity as strength. Dreamers need doers more than doers need dreamers.
- Say, “Thank you,” till they feel sick of saying it. Then, they say it some more.
- Realize optimism, positivity, and affirmation are more attractive than discontent.
- Understand their negativity frustrates others.
- Finish stuff. Create short-term goals and celebrate achievements.
- Don’t say, “Yes and,” not, “Yeah but…”
- Say, “We’re getting there.”
- Share frustrations with trusted friends and allies.
- Keep trying stuff. It’s better to try 10 things and succeed at two than to try nothing at all.
- Give others as much freedom as they expect others to give them.
- Talk over dreams in private before going public.
- Dream dreams that require teams. It’s one thing to dream; it’s another to lead a team toward the dream.
- Express dissatisfaction in positive ways. Think, “What can be done more than what’s not being done.”
When does dreaming become problematic?
How can leaders bring dreams to life in the present?
Well think I figured out what has been bothering me about how the term Leader is used here.
It is in the now, real Leadership is, do not give a rip about anythkng but one leading right now!!! I do not care what a person did yesterday, last week.
Are they Leading right now??? Titles mean NOTHING!!!
Actions others follow, that is Leading.
Ok so my coolest new teacher Trevor Blake is way down on goals. Dan think dreams could be seen that way.
Trevor likes Intentions. Till I sell two companies for 400 million bucks he is the Leader. See I just don’t give myself a title with no results!
And do not follow idiots that do.
Results, that is what to follow. People who turn their rhetoric into tangible stuff. Cause that is what I want!! Lol. Tangible stuff!!
So Intentions to Trevor communicate more action than saying goals.
Till I out produce him, his ideas win.
And only one problem not 15 with Intentions.
A conscious contact on accomplishing them or the other choice.
Mentally focusing on anything else.
All about where and what I choose to focus on each moment.
Just my two cents worth.
SP
EA
Thanks Scott. So I take it you see a dark side to dreaming. 🙂
Good evening Dan
I like this blog even though I see bits of myself in both dreamer list. I feel confident in the fact that I presribe to the sucsessful dreamer list but must admit, at times I can allow stinkin thinkin to question “why the heck don’t others get it. And frustration at times kicks in when progress is slow. This is when I think of the 5K races I’ve run. It takes a lot of strides to complete the race, but making it to the end takes one step at a time.
Cheers Dan
P.S. “Did u set a date for our afternoon workshop yet”?
Thanks SGT. I’m in both lists! And other dreamers I know are also. Thankfully, we’re on a journey.
The trouble with leadership is OTHERS. The opportunity of leadership is OTHERS.
No date set yet. We’ll have to talk sometime soon.
I have a little of both as well Dan. So you definitely aren’t the lone ranger. : )
For all of us ‘dreamers’, we can’t have to be careful of using the dream as an excuse to not LIVE in present reality. As a child (and I won’t go into details here yet you know enough about my history I don’t think I need to), it was easy for me to escape my reality. It was a natural defense mechanism that helped me survive.
As an adult, when ‘dreams’ are shattered, we still need enough real hope to dream a brand new dream. Yet we also need to be able to take a step towards that dream, even if we can’t see the end in sight…or the light at the end of the tunnel.
On a personal level, the challenge for me was being hit with the equivalent of several earth quakes in a row. So I felt like I was standing in the door jam of my life bracing for impact until I can be CERTAIN all the aftershocks were over…and that there wasn’t yet another ‘earthquake’ that was going to happen again.
There’s not a better way I can describe it.
And it was (has been) frustrating for me as someone who HAS had to take quite a few risks in life. Some of that risk taking ability also decreased, naturally, when I had children and especially after my husband died. It’s one thing to gamble with your own life. Quite another when you have children counting on you and no one to bail you out. (no net)
As for the 2nd question, we can take it one day at a time. Have the big dreams but for some of us, we ‘need’ to start small in order to build up to achieving the bigger. Many of our dreams really can’t be achieved without the cooperation of others and/or team. So finding and connecting with the ‘right’ mix of people is also important.
Great list Dan. Thanks for sharing.
I’m a dreamer! I am also a community builder and team lover!
Diana
Like others here I’m also probably more familiar with the 1st list than the second and your phrasing as well as context helps me to see why I need to shift more to the 2nd list to see more dreams through. Thank you for that.
I see problems arise most often from the inability of myself and others to break down dreams into more discrete or dependent goals first and then celebrate those discrete mini-successes along the way. I’m in the process of learning Lean Six Sigma and can see how that will help in this iterative process dramatically.
I can see myself in both lists also. Very good collection! Would make great fodder for morning prayer or conversation with the mirror.
Good news, I polarize almost naturally against people who make the fact they CAN dream big into the accomplishment. IOW, they measure themselves by the dreams’ frequency, quantity, and magnitude, whether (a) the dreams have a possibility of being accomplished or (b) they will be participating in execution (my answer to 1).
Bring them to life today? By trying to attach the dreams to today. After the ‘big dream’ is articulated, walk through the steps, or at least try, that could get us from here to there. Make them believable rather than, “just trust me everyone”. Is this dumbing down the dreams? No, it is just humanizing them for the straights. 🙂
Great blog Dan – found it just today.
GW
Great one! I think I am guilty of the darker side these days, and I need to switch out of this
The key to dreaming is understanding you are not the only one! Once we get past the selfish factor, and remembering others do count and often have the same dreams or similar desires, we can proceed with the evolution into becoming real life intimacies or happenings! The other side is whether it was real of just fantasy! 🙂
Thank you Dan! When does the dreaming become problematic? Perhaps it could be one of the ideas for the next entry. How does practically follow your dreams, goals… Because usually, us, Dreamers can meticulously write down our goals, dreams etc… yet they stay but sandcastles in the clouds.
You gave a great tip in #7 Finish stuff. Create short-term goals and celebrate achievements.
Dan can you expound a little more on “Rise above the thought that telling inspires people.”
In the words of Disney, “A dream is a wish your heart makes when you’re fast asleep.”
: )
Always celebrate success.
The dark side of dreaming comes when you only dream and don’t act on that dream, when you don’t take the steps needed to realize your dream. If you believe that just visualizing your dream or having the mindset of success will get you there, and then you don’t arrive, you begin to get negative and perhaps blaming others for your stagnant position. This becomes frustrating and can feed on itself. Being stagnant may not be a problem if you are happy where you are, but if you are dreaming of a different place, you need to act, adjust, and readjust.
I believe that telling people directly how to do something does not inspire them to think, it does not encourage them to resolve any issues themselves.
I am not sure I understand “Successful dreamers: …8. Don’t say, ‘yes and,’ not, ‘yeah but…’ ” Is this saying BOTH statements are a “don’t say” or “yes and” is the better mindset and not to say “yeah but…”?
Hi Dan and Leadership Freak readers: I’d like to comment on dreams generally, as I believe dreams are the equalizer not only in leadership success, but also in education among our students. It’s the one important thing our children don’t do any more–like in the past. It’s like people don’t believe in the reality of dreams.
Dreamers are realists. And, successful people are big dreamers in reality. Just ask any entrepreneur, scientist, astronaut, or high achiever. If we can dream it, we can do it. We must believe in our dreams to be true “before” knowing they are true…before they can become reality.
For example, a scientist believes in a hypothesis, and a dreamer believes in a vision. Science can discover by accident, but nothing is revealed by accident. Every science begins as a “belief” (i.e., dream) and ends as art; it arises in hypothesis and flows into achievement. Belief (as both dream and philosophy) is an interpretation of the uncertain (vision), or of the inexactly known (imagination).
Science is analytical description; a dream is synthetic interpretation. Science wishes to resolve the whole into parts, the organism into organs, the obscure into the known. It does not inquire into the values and ideal possibilities of things, nor into their total and final significance, like a dream, for example. Science is content to show present actuality and operation (doing vs. becoming), and it narrows its gaze to the nature and process of things as they are (working vs. contributing).
Again, science can discover by accident, but nothing is “revealed” by accident. Also, both scientist and dreamer alike must believe something to be true “before” knowing it is true: A scientist believes in a hypothesis, and a dreamer believes in a dream (vision). The scientist is impartial: They are as interested in the leg of a flea as in the creative throes of genius. Conversely, a dreamer is not content to describe a fact; They wish to ascertain its relation to experience in general, and thereby to get at its meaning and worth. A dreamer combines things in interpretative synthesis. That is, to put together and manifest that great “universe watch” (man’s innate ability to dream) which the inquisitive questioner has analytically taken apart.
Dreaming is the desire and synergy to “see” (understand) life, living, being, and doing in the light of all experience. Dreamers observe life’s processes, critique, and then construct means and coordinate ends. Dreamers know a fact is nothing except in relation to desire; meaning is not complete except in relation to purpose and a whole. Science without belief–facts without perspective and valuation—can only give us knowledge. But only dreamers can reveal the innate meaning of man’s mysterious ability of inner vision and belief.