Steve Jobs once said, “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most
important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in
life.” Shortly afterwards he started a multibillion-dollar product line – the iPhone.
Our mortality is our most powerful ally, yet many of us live every day blissfully
ignorant of its presence. Most of us move through our entire lives without
even thinking about the reality that it will one day end.
As we sleepwalk through life, we push all our dreams and desires to ‘someday,’ but someday rarely comes. For many of us, it is only when we come close to death that we start to pay attention and discover the treasures that live deep within us. For it is only when we risk losing something that we truly find its value.
Just over a year ago my eldest daughter Lauren was diagnosed with a brain tumor, an epidermoid cyst on the brain that she has apparently had since birth.
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| Me & Lauren last year |
I will never forget the day we sat with the neurosurgeon and he explained the situation to her. We came out of his office and she turned to me and said 'Oh ... well that's a bit of a nuisance.' Instead of falling to pieces, which I was doing on the inside, she made the decision to live each day to the fullest. Her and her boyfriend bought their first home in July, they have just come back from holiday, she is off to France skiing in the new year and she has just been promoted to senior therapist at her work...not bad for someone who just qualified a year ago. She is determined to make every day count.
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| Lauren & her boyfriend this year |
While many of us would have given up at this, Lauren chose to live her life to the full. She doesn't know what the future holds but neither do any of us. My daughters have been a huge inspiration for me, showing me that it is better to try and to fail than not to have tried at all, the youngest telling me what I am 'being called to do' and my eldest showing me that it is important to overcome the fear and get on with living life to your fullest potential.
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| Holly, my youngest & miss knowitall! |
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I can't stress enough how important it is to follow your dreams, Niamh my middle daughter has always wanted to sing and dance but at school her teachers wanted her to study and become a doctor. Niamh had no interest in this and worried because 'teachers know best'. I have always taught my girls that you must do what makes you happy in life, so...
she took a year out, got a lead part in a play, now teaches 2-5 year olds ballet & highland dancing while studying to become a dance teacher.
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| Niamh on opening night |
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Now is the time to take a leaf from my daughters book and 'live the dream'!!
The following is taken from an article by Nanice Ellis for Wake Up World:
The fear of disappointment stops more people from living their lives
than anything else? We are so afraid of disappointment that we fail to
even dream. Many of us believe it’s better not to dream at all than to
get our hopes up, only to fall. If you live your life in fear of
disappointment, you are not truly living — disappointment has tricked
you into playing it safe, and you will end up with the very thing you
sacrificed your life to avoid.
Disappointment is your ill begotten
friend who wants to keep you safe from loss and pain. But disappointment
knows nothing of resiliency, determination, and perseverance.
Disappointment knows nothing of reaching the mountain top and planting
your flag!
If you are truly committed to your dream,
disappointment is impossible. Disappointment only occurs if you give
up. If you are committed to your desire, there is no giving up. If not
one way then another – and another and another, until you succeed. Every
successful person has experienced temporary disappointment but each got
over it and “on with it” – to ultimately experience success. When you
refuse to take no for an answer, disappointment is impossible and so is
failure.
Along the way, disappointment will
likely call you in and comfort you in the solitude of its cave.
Disappointment will present you with a story that makes it all seem too
hard to go on, and will reassure you of a safe life. Disappointment will
lure you with the comfort of avoiding defeat and invite you to settle
into relief.
If you are going to pursue a dream, commit to going the whole nine
yards. If you just test the waters, disappointment will surely stop you
in your tracks. But, if you tell yourself “I am going to do this and
nothing is going to stop me,” success is eminent and guaranteed. The
rocks on the road that might have tripped you, if you weren’t committed,
will be small pebbles that you skip over.
Disappointment can only strike if you give up!
So, if you are going to do something, do
it, and make a commitment to yourself that you will not give up – that
you will see it to the end. The opposite of disappointment is believing
that you can have what you desire, and it is your beliefs that manifest
in reality.
The road to your dream may look very
different than you imagined, so let go of the way that it has to look,
and go with the flow. This means that the love of your life might be a
different person than the one that you had your mind set on. You might
also be very surprised that twists and turns take you in a more direct
route than the one that you pre-planned.
Success is around the corner, but
sometimes corners create shadows, and disappointment can hide in the
shadows. But shadows aren’t real and neither is disappointment. Risk
disappointment…
This is the simple formula for success –
dream big, commit to your dream, let go of the way it has to look,
trust the process and never give up.
What are your dreams? Pop your answer in the comments below and we can make our dreams happen together.
