3 Simple Steps Toward Realizing Your Dream - PHH 187

Frankly, this has been my experience with a lot of the classes I've taken, and maybe with some of the classes you've taken too. Lots of people start, but only a small percentage actually finish. Maybe the goal of the class isn't important enough to them. They discover they don't really want it someplace along the way, and that's legitimate. But if there's something you really want to do, you simply need to do it.

Welcome to the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I'm Anne Sullivan, a harpist on a mission to empower every harpist to experience more harp happiness. Over my decades long harp journey, I've had lots of successes and more than a few failures. And I know firsthand what it's like to feel that playing the harp the way you want may not be possible for you. Now, I play and teach all over the world, and I know what most harpists are never taught the secrets to gaining the skills and confidence you need to play the harp with beauty, freedom and joy. That's what the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast is all about. Showing you simple steps to help you play the music you want the way you want. If you're an experienced harpist looking for that next level, or a harp newbie anxious to avoid the pitfalls, or a harpist who just wants more fulfillment and a little encouragement, you're in the right place, my friend. So let's get started.

First, I want to let you in on something special. I think the most important thing you can do for your harp playing is to develop the habits that lead to success. Whatever that looks like for you. All of us want to learn how to play the harp beautifully, how to play with confidence and enjoy making music. And if you really want to learn those things, videos are great. But live learning is essential. You need to be able to ask questions and get answers. You can't do that with just a video, which is what makes the Miharp Mastery community so special. My Harp Mastery membership is for those who really want an online experience that lets them learn at their own pace and learn what they want and be able to learn live from expert coaches every single week. Plus, you get to connect with other harpists in the community who have the same desires for their playing. This is not only a powerful learning platform, but it's also the most generous community of harpists and anywhere on the planet. They're harpists with a positive outlook, a growth mindset, and a spirit of support for their fellow harpists on the journey with them. We're ready for you. Join us. Just go to harpmastery.com join now that's harpmastery.com join now. Welcome to the show. As you probably know, one of the reasons I started Harp Mastery back in 2012 was because of the number of adult harp students I was meeting who were frustrated by their lack of progress. Although these harpists were at different stages and interested in varying kinds of music, what they had in common was an incredibly strong desire to play the harp, a desire that kept them practicing despite the challenges they were encountering. Although I hadn't come up with the term harp happiness at that point, I knew that I had to help these harpists find a path that would give them the joy and satisfaction they were looking for in their harp playing. But years before that, I had already discovered something that shocked me about adult harp students. I had started a class for beginning harpists of any age. The classes usually had teenagers and adults, and I became intrigued by the reasons these students wanted to play the harp. Many of the adults had wanted to play the harp since they were young and were finally able to pursue their dream. I'm embarrassed to admit this, but it had not really occurred to me before that that there were so many people who had always wanted to play the harp, but for one reason or another hadn't been able to. I mean, I was so blessed to be able to say I want to play the harp and have parents who were able to support that dream. But that isn't the case for most people. For instance, there was the woman who told her parents she wanted to play the harp and they bought her a clarinet. Another who wanted to learn the harp in high school, but her high school only offered harp lessons to one student every other year, and and she was in the wrong year. A third was told by her parents that a harp was simply out of the question and she could either play the piano they already had or not play music at all. Now, not all the stories were like this, but there were enough. In fact, too many. As an aside, I will say that there's another very happy story connected to this class, and I'll share that with you at the end of the episode. What's important about these stories is that for these people, the dream of playing the harp never went away. Life took them away from the harp, but their desire to play was never extinguished. We all have dreams or bucket lists, things we want to do but feel unable to do. Now, as a harpist, maybe there's a special piece you want to learn, a place you want to play. Maybe you want to develop a repertoire or learn how to serve others with the harp. What I want to talk to you about today is how to start making those harp dreams happen. Your dreams shouldn't be gathering dust on a shelf. And it's no use telling yourself that those dreams don't really matter, because I can tell you from my experience with those harp students in my first class and hundreds more that I have worked with since then, your dreams do matter, and they don't go away. And we're quickly coming up on a new year. So imagine how exciting this year could be for you if you were able to make your dreams into your reality. It's not as hard as you think. I've been telling you for a while now about our getaway retreat that is happening this February in Kissimmee, Florida. And I want you to just keep that in mind because this is a resource for. For you. As we're talking about fulfilling dreams and turning dreams into reality and what stands between you and the accomplishment of those dreams, I want you to remember that the resource is there for you. The resource that includes some instruction, some time to focus, some community that is supportive and encouraging along the way. So that's one of the resources that you have available to you to help you find your path to your dreams. So as we're going through our discussion about turning those dreams into reality, please keep that in the back of your mind. It's a fabulous opportunity and one that is right there for you. You see, the truth is this. Acting on your dreams is easy. It's putting them off that's hard. Once you start to take action and you start to take the steps forward toward your dream, you find that the obstacles actually shrink. Now, most people never discover this because they stop before they act. When I wanted to start a podcast, for instance, this podcast, I took a class, you know, there. I could have looked everything up online, and I could have looked at the different steps and all this sort of stuff. But there was a guy that I had been in a community with, and he was offering this class, and it was, you know, some money, but it wasn't a ton of money, considering. And I thought, well, it's going to help because he has a podcast. He knows how to teach people to have podcasts. And so it's going to help me move faster if I take his class. So I enrolled. It was great. When I started, there were 16 people in the class. There were only six classes that we met every other week. We had homework to do, you know, a little. Okay, get this done. These are Your next steps. Okay, no problem. So there were 16 people in the class when I started. At the final class, I was the only one left. I know that sounds crazy, right? All these people wanted to have a podcast. Actually, some of them already did, but they wanted a refresher course on some of the ins and outs of it. But by the last class, I was it. I was the only one who had actually started a podcast. Who came with no podcast started and got it started. And it wasn't because the stuff we were learning was hard. The teacher running the class had made all the steps very easy. The reason I ended up with the podcast and some of the other people didn't is simply because I did it. And frankly, this has been my experience with a lot of the classes I've taken, and maybe with some of the classes you've taken, too. Lots of people start, but only a small percentage actually finish. Maybe the goal of the class isn't important enough to them. They discover they don't really want it someplace along the way, and. And that's legitimate. But if there's something you really want to do, you simply need to do it. You simply need to act. And that's the acronym we're going to use today. ACT, A, C, T. We're going to be talking about acknowledging, about challenging, and about time. So we're talking about action. As we start our discussion, I want you to remember this, that there is only one step from a dream to a reality, and that is action. It's the only step that you have to take, and it's the only step that works. Because if you're continuing to dream, it's not going to become real. If you act on that dream, it will become real. Now, the reality may change, your dream may change and morph and shift. You may find that that original direct is a little bit different from where you really want to go. But that's how you get there. You act. And that's the only thing you have to do. And that's what makes this easier than we all imagine. Seems like a hard process, and it's not. It's very simple. But there are some big challenges. And so we're going to start with the A in the word act. And we're going to start by acknowledging some of those challenges. Those challenges, though, aren't too big for you. There are ways around them, under them, through them, over them, all of that. But we need to start just a little simpler, because before we can get to the challenges, I want you to acknowledge the truth and the worth of your dream. I want you to own your dream. That may seem like it's a given, and it may seem like it's an unnecessary step. But here's the thing. If you just have that little. What we often call a pipe dream, and it's in the back of your mind somewhere, how real does that feel to you? Are you shy about it? Is it one of those things that you kind of, you know, think about when nobody else is around? You know, sort of like the singing into your hairbrush in the mirror, right? You know, it's like, yes, I'm a rock star. I'm singing into my hairbrush. Your dream is a worthy dream. You can call it an ambition. You can call it a hope, you can call it a wish. You can call it an idea, if some of those words are too scary for you. But if it's what you want to do, it's worth doing, and you are worthy of it. Your dream, your ambition, is a real desire. It's not just a fairytale. Fancy. And I know that it's very easy to dismiss it that way, right? To say, well, you know, it's not really a big deal and I don't really have to do it, and it's just kind of fun to think about, but I don't really need it and it's okay. But that's not true. If it's something you want to do, then it's worth doing and you are worthy of doing it. I mean, where you are right now doesn't have to be good enough. So that if you're tempted to say, well, you know, I know I really want to play this particular piece, but, you know, I'm happy with this one. The music I know now is okay. It doesn't have to be good enough for you. If you have dreams to do more, those dreams are worth pursuing. It's that challenge, it's that ambition that makes us human. We want to do these things. So let's uncover those wants and ambitions a little bit. Let's sort of scrape away the things that are hiding them. Maybe they're under a little bit of dust because you haven't looked at them at all for a while. Maybe you've sort of hidden them under other things just so that you don't have to look at them. But let's pull them out. Let's bring the light of day to them. And I'd like you to start this way. Start with that sentence. Well, I've always wanted to. In fact, that was one of the Things I used at my first harp class. I called it, haven't you always wanted to play the harp? That was part of the. The slogan that I used for it and I found out it was true. A lot of people had always wanted to play the harp. Well, you're already playing the harp, so what is it that you've always wanted to do with it now? It can take a little digging to find this out. Just like a bucket list can be a little bit hard to define, this kind of ambition can be a little hard to uncover. After all, we spend a lot of time hiding our inmost desires from other people. So take a quiet moment and just sit and say, okay, well, I've always wanted to play this, do this, be able to do this. Try this. And you can list as many as you want. You don't just have to have one. We're not going to do them all at once, that's for sure. That's a shortcut to failure, isn't it? Trying to do too much. That's why a bucket list has numbers, by the way, right? We've got number one on our bucket list, number two on our bucket list. So we're not trying to do them all at once. This doesn't have to be a bucket list. This is a harp list, a harp dreams list. Ooh, that sounds like fun. So it's okay to have more than one. Just make your list until you put them down on paper. I can guarantee that those dreams are going to be a little bit elusive once you put it on the paper. It's a whole different ball game now. In my gold circle, the students that I teach, one on one, we call this the most meaningful goal. It has to do with that ultimate reason, that ultimate why you started the harp. You know, I've always wanted to do this or what you want to do with the harp. It could be a particular kind of accomplishment or a particular way that you want to enjoy the harp or perhaps even render service to others. With the harp, that's okay, but it's meaningful and you don't have to use the word goal for it. It doesn't have to be that lofty. It can just be something you've always wanted to do. Maybe you've always wanted to get a pedal harp. Ooh, okay, well, that's an ambition. Maybe you've always wanted to try some, some Celtic music with a band. Ooh, that could be fun. But think about those things that you've always wanted to do. That's what we need. That's where we need to start. Then I want you to remember that you need to acknowledge the resistance here. What do I mean by resistance? Well, resistance shows up in a number of ways, but basically it's that force that keeps you from doing what you want to do. One of the first ways the resistance shows up when we're talking about our dreams is that we discard our dreams before we even acknowledge them. Oh, well, I've always wanted to play Carnegie Hall. We say. And then we say, well, that's just silly. Why? What's silly about it? And you know something? Anybody can play at Carnegie Hall. All you have to do is rent it. Yeah, I know that's a lot of money, but there are other ways to do this too. So let's just think about what you want to do and don't censor yourself. Now, you may find the resistance coming in terms of pushback from others. If you're starting to share your dream with them, may not be best to share your dreams with other people. At this point, you can keep your list to your, especially if you feel a little bit shy about it. But think about what it is you want to do without self censoring. I encourage you to give that dream some substance. I want you to write it down. I told you to make a list. We'll take one of those dreams, maybe the one that most appeals to you today, and write it out on a separate piece of paper 25 times until it begins to feel real. I want to have an hour long repertoire. I want to have an hour long repertoire. I want to have an hour long repertoire. If that's your dream, don't hone it, don't refine it. Don't try to talk yourself down off the ledge. Well, like, oh, gosh, an hour feels like a lot. Maybe I should start with 30 minutes. Don't go there. Don't go there. And if your dream is to play at Carnegie hall, just write it. Say, I want to play at Carnegie Hall. That's okay. We're not censoring it. We're not adding any. Some days we're not saying, oh, I wish I could. Like we're going to have a fairy godmother come down and make it come true. We're going to have to make our own dream come true. But don't let that stop you from writing it down. And as I said before, if you have multiple dreams, do that for each of them. You know, if you've got a list of 25, well, that's great, but maybe you want to Pick the top three and say, okay, I'm going to write each one of these down. The act of writing it down 25 times or 50 times or 10 times or whatever it takes is that it achieves a certain reality for us. It becomes more concrete, it becomes more focused. And we decide as we're doing that we know by the time we get to the end if it's a real dream for us, if it's something that feels good, that would feel good. If we could do it. Ooh, yeah, that. Wouldn't that be great? Wouldn't that be great? Then we know it's really something that we need to act on. We just have to find out how. So this is the acknowledge step. You're going to acknowledge your own dreams and your own worthiness to pursue them. You're going to acknowledge the resistance you might get from others, and you're just going to give your dream substance. You're going to write it down and make your list. You don't have to check it. You don't have to look for naughty and nice. I know we're in that kind of holiday mood here. Just write it down. Now that you've acknowledged your dream or dreams, you're going to face the very biggest challenge that you will face along the entire journey of your being able to achieve that dream. And that is what you're afraid of. Our fears are the number one reason that we don't achieve our dreams. We might have fears about our own abilities, that we aren't good enough, perhaps. Well, you know what? We don't have to be good enough right now, because where we are right now isn't where we're going to be. In a little while. Our abilities will keep changing. They've been changing all through our harp journey. Why wouldn't they keep changing? Right. We are or will be good enough. Perhaps you're worried and afraid about qualifications you're missing that are things you can't change. Like you started the harp too late or your fingers are too stiff, or you're too old. Well, just remember the American folk artist, Grandma Moses didn't start painting until she was 78 years old. Now, if you're 78 right now, you have a 50% chance of living to be 90. That's 12 years of harping that you could do between now and 90. And who knows? You may live longer. In fact, Grandma Moses lived to be 101, so she had 22 years of painting. There's nothing that says that you're too old. No one who says you're too old. Except for you. You didn't start too late. You are where you are right now. And if your fingers are stiff, well, we'll start flexing them, we'll start moving them. And you know what? They may never be, probably will never be as nimble as they might have been 50 years ago. If you're one of those 78 year old harpists, but you can still play with them, they will do what you need them to do. We're just going to have to change our ideas and demands just a little bit. You don't need to worry about those things, we can overcome those. And the easiest way to overcome your own fears about your abilities is to get feedback. Feedback from a teacher, feedback from a coach, from someone who knows what the path is, someone who has the perspective to be objective about it, to look at what you want to do, look at where you are now and look at the options that you have in front of you in a way that you can't. I mean, you're down at the bottom of the hill, perhaps looking up, they're already up on that hill and they can see where the shortcuts are, they can see where the pitfalls are and can show you how to avoid them. You don't have to go this alone. And if you have any concerns about your ability to get from where you are now to where you want to go, then just get help. It's right there for you. Maybe you're ready to believe you're good enough, but you're a little concerned about the opinion of other people, that the world is going to judge you. You know, it's funny, we know we shouldn't feel that way, but I think in particularly in the culture we have today, when social media is everywhere, it's hard not to compare ourselves with others and not to think that other people are going to be looking down on us or comparing us or judging us. But truthfully, the world is not waiting for you to succeed or fail. Most of the world, even the harp world, is too worried about themselves to spend time worrying about you. You know, and as your mother might have told you, the people who are going to criticize you for trying are the ones who are too afraid to try it themselves. Perhaps you're worried that you're going to fail and you might, there might be a lot of failures on your road to success. One of the most famous failure stories is Thomas Edison. Right, Edison, who invented so many things, more patents than anybody else, a tremendous inventor, but he was known to have Said, I have not failed 10,000 times. Even though he did, right? He said, I have not failed 10,000 times. I've successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work. And all this for the light bulb. Okay, there's going to be failure, but failure is not an end. Failure is nothing to be ashamed of. And I know you know that, but I had to tell you anyway.

Maybe you're worried that someone is going to say, I told you so. I told you you'd never be able to do it. Maybe you're the biggest naysayer in your life. Oh, I don't think I'm going to be able to do it. I know I'm not going to be able to do it. Well, let's put that aside. How will we know if we don't try? Or maybe you're afraid that you actually may succeed. I mean, if you do this thing, will you have to do more? Will there be a new and higher level of expectation for you?

That could be scary, right? But you know what? If you achieve that dream, there's nothing that says that you have to go higher, right? There are plenty of one hit wonders in the world and they made their fortunes and left while they were at the top. You can do that too. Achieving one dream doesn't mean you have to achieve the next one, Although it may give you more power and more belief in yourself to achieve something else on your list. But it doesn't mean you have to. There's no reason to give in to fear. That's our biggest challenge between our dream and our reality. And once you can let go of the fears, there's only one other thing you have to tackle. And that's the time. The easiest way not to achieve a dream is to say, well, this is not the time. There's never a right time, is there? There's always something else going on. Always a good reason not to do it now. But here's the question, and I know you've heard it before. If not now, when? And if not now, why not? What is the point in putting this off? Your dream isn't going to go away. It's still going to be there. I mean, if you. The longer you put off that dream, the harder that little nugget gets, you know, that little nugget that lives someplace inside you and it's like, okay, this is my dream and I'm tucking it way far away and I'm going to hold on to it, but it's in there and you keep it hidden. But every once in a While it just kind of hurts, you know, there's that, oh, man, I really want to do this, and I'm just not.

And the fact is, you need to make time. Now, I'm not talking about time blocking. I'm not talking about scheduling. I'm not talking about creating a timeline or a big plan of action for this thing. I'm talking about just starting. Because the easiest time to start working on a dream is right now. The easiest time is when you're thinking about it. The easiest time is when you've written out your 25. I want to play at Carnegie Hall. I want to play at Carnegie hall. Or I want to learn the little fountain, or I want to have a piece to play for my family on Christmas. Whatever it is, the easiest time to start is right now. And what you want to find is the very easiest way to start. The very first step. Many times the first step toward acting on a dream and making it a reality is to just schedule a lesson. Boom. Right? To schedule a lesson with a teacher and say, okay, this is what I want to do. Now, there's a caution that I would put on at this point, too. I would advise you not to schedule a lesson with just a teacher you chose at random, one that you haven't worked with before, or one that you don't have the comfort level with to say, this is what I want to do, and how can you help me do it? You don't want a teacher who's going to say, when you share your innermost dream with them, who's going to say, okay, well, what we really need to work on is your technique. I mean, maybe that's the first step toward working on your dream, but probably not. So, you know, you want somebody who's going to be able to take that ball and move it forward with energy for you instead of just giving you the next tiniest little step.

If scheduling a lesson isn't the right thing for your particular dream, well, maybe you need to book that gig, call around and find a nursing home that will be happy to have you. And then give yourself a way to start working on your repertoire that way. Or to just make a list of pieces you want to learn. Or maybe it's just practicing today. But what I encourage you to do is do one simple, simple, super easy step today.

Schedule that lesson, or practice, or make a list. Whatever it is, do the first thing today and then identify the next three things that you think you need to do. Once again, if you meet with a teacher, you may find out that the three things you thought are the way to go are really not your teacher's idea of the way to go. They may have you moving in a completely different and likely faster direction, one that's more guaranteed to take you where you want to go. Because going it alone is a lot harder. Right? As I mentioned a moment ago, you don't have the perspective when you're trying to achieve that dream. You want somebody who's already done it to help guide you on that path. That's helpful. Shameless plug here. Maybe the first easiest thing you could do would be to register for the retreat. Let me help you. So there's that as well. That's certainly possible. But you need to find that first easiest thing and do it now.

Because that's all you need to do. Remember, the only step that is between your dream and your reality is the action that you take. And the sooner you take that first action, the closer you get to your dream. It's what's going to make it real for you and it's what is going to give you the energy to keep working on it instead of just harboring it inside you and wishing that it were so. That's one of my favorite Star Trek Next Generation lines, correct? Captain Picard talking to his first in command, Lieutenant Riker, and saying, make it so. That's what we're going to do. We're going to make it. So let me recap those three steps we talked about today. It's that acronym act you want to acknowledge. Acknowledge your dream, own it. Then there are the challenges. You want to face those challenges so that once you look them in the eye, you can defeat them and probably just put them aside as really substantive. Less. That's not a word, right? How about insubstantial? Put them aside as insubstantial. They're really not as much in your way as you think. And then own the time. The time is now. And that's how you make your dream your harp reality.

And now that story that I promised I would share with you. You remember that first harp class that I taught so long ago? Well, I told you it was generally composed of adult and teenage students. But every once in a while I would have a youngster, a real youngster. And the youngest member of that class happened to be just a wee thing. And she was also a star student in that class, made progress so quickly and quickly graduated to private lessons also. And apparently those early classes and lessons stood her in good stead. Because that first youngest student in my harp class was one of our Harp Mastery Certified coaches, Caitlin Mertens. That's how she started the harp with me. And now she's a professional playing with the Houston Grand Opera and working for us, of course, as a certified coach and as our Dean of Harpist success in our coaching program. She's wonderful and I just am so proud to think that I've known her and worked with her for that long. So just a fun little story from that first harp class before we go. I just want to recap a little bit and remind you that following through on those dreams, turning those dreams that you have into reality, no matter how big those dreams are or how small, that's something that you can do right away. And it's something that we have resources to help you do at Harp Mastery. Whether it's just getting into the app and joining me on the live Monday warm ups or maybe practicing along with us in the practice labs or following along with the little two minute tip videos, talking with the other members in the community. Maybe it's taking one of our monthly seminar courses, which are the same courses that I teach live to the My Harp Mastery members. Or maybe you're ready to jump in with both feet and become a My Heart Mastery member and have access to the other 60 or 70 courses that live in the My Heart Mastery archives. And of course, we teach on a new one. I teach along with the certified coaches. We teach a new one every month, so there's always plenty of learning going on and plenty happening in the community there. And then of course, we have our coaching program. And for a more concentrated, intense jumpstart to whatever dreams or goals you might have, consider joining me at the Harp Mastery Getaway Retreat in February. It's a great way to just take action and leapfrog forward, move forward much faster, and get on your way to whatever it is you want to do in the coming year. Wow, it seems funny to talk about that. Next week on the podcast we'll be looking at the holidays and I'll be sharing a holiday playlist with you, which I hope you will enjoy. There's nothing like harp music for the holidays, even when you're a harpist. I never get tired of it, so I'll be sharing a playlist with you on the podcast next week. In the meantime, remember, every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit, and all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your Harp happiness every day. See you next time.