I’ve just finished reading How To Make Your Dreams Come True by Mark Forster. (Available free, here on his blog.) This is a small gem that deserves a lot more attention.
A key distinction that he makes is between push and pull methods for getting things done. Instead of pushing ourselves with obligations and promises, Mark suggests that we should be pulled towards our vision of the future. In my own life, I have found that I have enormous amounts of energy when I am being pulled towards a clear and meaningful vision. Mark provides three powerful tools for making your dreams come true:
1. What’s Better?
Instead of focusing on what you think needs to be done each day, reflect on what has made the day better. Most of us excel at writing to-do lists – lists of obligations and promises we have made ourselves and others. Take a moment at the end of your day to jot down what was better about it. It’s liberating to choose to see the positive.
2. Goal Achievement Methodology
These are two working narratives: one of your current reality and one of your envisioned future self. In the present tense, write down what you see your future reality looking like. Then, write what your current reality looks like. Initially, these may be single words: eg “Happy” or “Sad”.
I have often struggled with writing goals for the future. Knowing that it is a good thing to do, I have either seen it as a lifeless list or a work that needs to be perfect and ‘set in stone’. The beauty of GAM is the opportunity to revise it often and regularly; and the use of narratives. I keep a working document of my goals ordered by date of revision, with my most recent version first. Because I don’t delete old revisions, it helps me from feeling that my goals need to be perfect and reminds me that I am a imperfect but developing being. The use of narratives is also a powerful. Unlike lists, narratives and stories evoke emotion. So write how you feel. This emotion is necessary for putting us in [e-]motion!
Finally, describing both the current reality and future vision produces a gap for creative work. This reminded me of Peter Senge’s Fifth Discipline: where the creative tension produced by seeing both the future vision and current reality is likened to the tension in a rubber band as it is pulled between the two hands.
3. Self Coaching
Talk with yourself! This may sound weird, but is really an encouragement to write, reflect and journal your thoughts. Mark does a creative job of exemplifying how this is done by writing the entire book in this format! Mark’s future self coaches his current self, in an insightful dialogue. The trick is: Mark’s future self can only ask questions, and has no answers.
Mark’s tools fit well with Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits and the concept of starting with your higher purpose first. If you read and like Mark’s book, I also recommend his other book: Do It Tomorrow. This is more about push than pull, but contains some good ideas for subjugating your to-dos and many obligations!
