When Dreams Become Goals | Building a Life

I am always more productive when I start my day off right. For me that means meditation, exercise, reading, and journaling. Oh yeah, and breakfast too. I almost forgot breakfast… again. I’ll admit it, I’m not the best at routines or habits or structure. I’ve been trying time blocking to get more done but even when I go as far as to look at my schedule, I have a tendency  to ignore it. The only habit I have is a habit of falling out of my routine. It doesn’t help that we travel a lot, work weekends, and don’t have a typical schedule to begin with. Being a parent only complicates things because time has gotten scarcer and more valuable. Luckily, I’m not self-employed by myself. I have Marc to keep me on track, or at the very least amaze me at how productive he can be.

It’s easy to  convince myself that I don’t have time to eat, exercise, or journal. There’s simply too much to do, I have to get started on work. The problem is that if I don’t take the time to get centered and be intentional, work is far less productive anyway. All this to say that today, at least today, I started my day right. I have to get out of bed at 6am on Tuesdays and Thursdays because I teach yoga, having someone expecting me somewhere makes actually getting there more important. It’s my version of getting to work on time. So I did my own (brief) practice, then taught some yoga, and then got in a work out. Now, I’ve already accomplished something and that momentum pushes me forward into my work day.

I’m trying something new, instead of opening my computer or my phone, I sat down with a book, a journal, and my breakfast. I ate, read, and got centered. I was reading a book given to me by my friend Torey Ivanic of Homeopathy 1st about goals which got me thinking about goals and dreams. If you follow our blog or are generally familiar with our story, you know that we recently moved our life and our business to Colorado. There’s a three part series we wrote on that process: Part 1 – Finding Home, Part 2 – Life on the Road, and Part 3 – Destinations. In 2015, I wrote down a series of goals both long term and short term. One of the big long term goals for us at that time was that we wanted to live somewhere we loved. We wanted to be able to hike our our backdoor. This goal was even accompanied by a sketch of our house in the forest, a hammock hung between two trees, and our mountain bikes on a nearby trail.

In reality, as a long term goal it wasn’t that specific yet, it didn’t have a timeline or milestones. It was probably more of a dream. But isn’t that how most goals come about? We have a dream, that dream becomes more clear, we figure out how to make it happen, and soon it becomes a goal that we’re actually working towards. I think the dream stage is very important. Our desire deepens when we visualize the dream, picture it in the mind, and feel the emotions that go along with it.

Goals often take hard work and require discipline and effort, dreams give us the motivation needed to put in that work.

Daily motivation, routine, and discipline can be hard.

Having a vivid dream of why you’re working might help you set a goal worth working towards.

That’s part of why we don’t call this category of the blog “building a business”, but rather it’s about “building a life.” Work isn’t just about getting paychecks and paying taxes. Work is one of those things you do to move you towards your dreams.

Let your passion inspire dreams. Turn your dreams into goals. Reach your goals and then dream bigger.

Thanks for taking the time to be here, we hope these thoughts make a difference in your day! If you enjoyed this post, check out more of our thoughts on building a life and a business. Be sure to join our newsletter below to keep up with fresh content, let us know what you want to hear, and get our free Build Your Life e-guide.

We are Marc and Brenda Bergreen, a husband and wife photography team specializing in outdoor weddings and other adventures. Capturing people in nature and the mountain lifestyle is a passion that became a dream (that became a goal) that became a life.

Based in Evergreen, CO we travel throughout the state as Colorado mountain and adventure wedding photographers. We also frequently travel to California and other wedding destinations to document your love in a variety of memorable settings. Don’t hesitate to contact us and let us know how we can help! Be sure to follow us (weddings instagram & adventures instagram) and/or like us (facebook) to stay tuned.

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