How to Align with Your Dreams

For many people, I tell them, the greatest breakthrough in your life is alignment. You've never even tried. And when I tell people that, I've heard people, when I've said that on stages around the world, I've heard people gasp in the audience because I say it. And I say, you've never even tried. And they're like, how dare you say that? Do you know how hard I work? I'm like, no, no. I know how hard you work. But I also know, can you face the fact that you work hard on a lot of things that don't align with where you want to go, that this is the hardest conversation in starting a dream, the guts to align towards it. Alignment is everything. If you read high performance habits, that story in there of that incredibly successful woman realizing that achievement wasn't her problem. Alignment was. Most of you, you're amazing to be doing personal development. You're an amazing person. You're probably already good at checklists and goals. You probably already get stuff done. You're probably the person in your community or your family who you happen to be that person who's a little more motivated or you try a little harder or you want better for your life than other people. Other people might think that personal development is silly or that your emphasis on getting things done is why do you have to be such a perfectionist and why do you have to try so hard? You probably get this from other people around you if you're in this community, I'm guessing. So you're amazing. Your next level isn't just being more productive. It's being effective at the right things that support the dream. That's what I mean by alignment. You can already get a lot done. The issue is removing the things that are not bringing value or progress towards the dream experience. It's about really analyzing my time, energy, resources, money, efforts, sanity and. Or am I applying those things in alignment with the dream, or am I aligning to lots of other actions and other people's obligations? Foreign. It's such a breakthrough. It's like if you. I mean, and this is so easy. I'm, I'm. I'm not trying to be doing a session here was so philosophical with you. If, if I came into your house and we just look at your calendar for the next six months, it's either going to show there's alignment towards something you're trying to experience and create, give manifest in your life, or it's blank or it's filled with a bunch of blocks of time for things that don't bring you joy or creativity or fulfillment or connection or growth. And I don't mean just your nine to fives, I mean just life. Right? We are either planning to live and build the dream life or we're just going through emotions. That's the stuff of alignment. It's a hard conversation for people. I know because I've been that stage of my life so many times where, yeah, Brendan, the calendar was blank. I didn't have a plan. And that's why I always will. Coming back to then at least define success in the 10 major areas of your life under your life scores, monthly whole life assessment. Keep revisiting that over and over and over and the goals will become clear. But I really believe for you and your next 12 months as you're starting a dream, your don't do list, your ability to say no, your courage in cutting things out, cutting people out, quitting of, of getting really clear and honest about what you want is the hard work of personal development. Lots of people really nail the self awareness part. Some of us. You filled out every single personality profile. Enneagram, Hot red, cold red, purple, black, fire, water. I mean, you know every strengths finder, mbti, cgi, cmb. You know, every single little. You fill every little quiz that pops up on the Internet. Well, you think you know yourself so good, and maybe you do, but none of that matters if you're not aligning your actual choices and habits towards what you want. That is. This is the hardest conversation in starting a dream. The guts to align towards it. Oh, it's so brutal. Because a dream really does require focus. It really does. It's so hard. And of course it's hard because you're trying to align a lot of things. Align your health and your family and your friends and your finances and what you're learning and you're trying to align all your actions. You're trying to. It's so hard. And that's the work. So you have to honor the struggle as you're trying to scale up what works. You're trying to target these things and you have to align. I mean, listen, for many people, I tell them the greatest breakthrough in your life is alignment. You've never even tried. And when I tell people that I. I've heard people, when I've said that on stages around the world, I've heard people gasp in the audience because I say it. And I say, you've never even tried. And they're like, how dare you say that? Do you know how hard I work? I'm like, no, no. I know how hard you work, but I also know can you face the fact that you work hard on a lot of things that don't align with where you want to go and honest people go. Yeah. And I'm not preaching when I say that because I spent seven years at a great job. I mean a great job, an amazing job. I was learning a lot. Great people contribute. I loved it. No regret. But what I was doing when I had that great job because I needed the job. I was also aligning my after hours learning, building, creating, aiming myself. So alignment doesn't have to be overnight. Alignment might be a slow. It's okay if it's going to take a year for you to align towards something. I am not one of those people who tells people to irresponsibly quit a job when their family needs it. Because that's not where I came from. I came from blue collar and people needed jobs. I know not everyone has the opportunities to just choose and direct their own fate at every given second. But over time, we do. Over time, we do. Over time, we are the captain of the ship. I'm not saying snap. I'm saying alignment. It's okay if it takes time. It took me seven years, Seven years before it was full time success as a writer. Seven years. But every little moment I was aligning more, saying no more, learning more. It was like, ah, it was hard. Who's been on that journey? I know many of you are on that journey right now and I celebrate you. Good for you. Don't get mad at yourself. Don't be hard on yourself. Accept where you're at. Feel the joys, the gratitude, the dream that's already here. Know the target and start right in the ship, baby. Ah. And that includes your daily habits. That was the hardest one for me. I was like, dang it, Dang it. For out of those seven, why did those. Why weren't those. Why were those seven years instead of three years? Because I didn't have the knowledge I have now that a dream requires a daily habit. Alignment happens on the daily. Not weekly, not monthly, not once a year. I had to. It took me about three years to realize I need to write every day. If the dream experience and the dream targets are out there, the way I'm thinking about them, I got to develop a writing practice every day. That was hard for me. That was hard for me. Some of you, maybe it's not so hard. It was hard for me. You want to be healthy in your dream life. That's daily. That's a choice about meditation, exercise, diet, sleep, supplementation. The positive relationships in life. That's a daily alignment. And so whatever your dream is, can you. I just want today 1. One daily habit. One daily habit in alignment with a dream. I would love to hear it, I'd love to see it. One daily habit. Just one. Whatever that is. It can be a choice. It can be a routine, it can be a pattern. What is that thing? Every day can change your life. All human beings, what we really desire, once we get past safety and sustenance are these four aspirations. We want a greater sense of aliveness. That might mean presence, consciousness, awareness, vibrancy, passion, enthusiasm. We all want more of that. Some people call it adventure, some people call it just the spice of life or joie de vivre. Whatever it is, we want a sense of aliveness. The second aspiration we talked about was deep connections. That means your relationships. At the end of our lives, it's the relationships that matter so much to us. And we know from research that the deeper relationships you have, the longer we live. Third, meaningful pursuits. Some people get this through creating, some people get this through service. But I'm here to tell you the important phrase here is meaningful pursuits. You have to pursue something. We all want to get better, to become more, to be a better leader. A parent servant role model. That sense each day that we have something to do that matters. Growth day. World's number one system for achieving it. We know from research. To improve your life long term, you gotta track your habits. You need a mindset journal. You got to have a goal setting system. You need deep dive education. You need coaching. You got to have ongoing conversations with other people about your personal and your professional goals. Our goal for you is to help you make self improvement a way of life. By giving you things that give you the guidance, the inspiration, the drive and the motivation to continue becoming more and more successful, healthy and happy in your life. Every day is a great day to grow. We say that every day, every day in growth day. Let's make this day the day you begin that journey.