#4 – Work

“There are two ways to reach the top of an oak tree—you can climb it or you can sit on an acorn and wait.” – Zig Ziglar

In my last few blogs i explained why dreaming is important and why we shouldn’t let our fears and doubt get in the way of us realising our dreams. I also reblogged a brilliant post by my friend Colas that explains why most of us are making excuses.

So now that you know all of this – what’s left? You need to put in the work. 

No one will climb that mountain for you, no one will write that book for you. It’s up to you alone to start taking action. Having dreams without taking action won’t get you anywhere. Two main obstacles that you will face along the way are:

#3 – Quit masturbating

Mental masturbation can be defined as “any pleasurable or stimulating but unproductive mental activity that is usually used as an excuse to avoid taking constructive action”.

I first came across this term a few months ago and it really hit me how so many of us are doing it unconsciously. In my opinion, there are two main reasons why we mentally masturbate:

• The first category includes people that have drifted away from their dreams and sense of purpose and thus their job or daily activities don’t provide them with enough internal stimuli in the form of happiness/positive emotions. As a result, in their spare time they search for external stimuli to make them feel good – which results in mental masturbation. For example: John wanted to be a businessman, however he had to settle to be an accountant and is now stuck in a 9-5 job that he hates. Everyday, he wakes up and goes to work and comes back home unhappy and discontent. This is when he will search for external stimuli to make him feel good about himself.

• The other category comprises of people that are aware of what their dreams but have something holding them back (usually fear). Therefore, as a way to not having to face the fact that they are only fantasising and not actually doing anything that brings them further to that dream, they mentally masturbate. They will use their time to watch successful people, read about what they do, fantasise about how they could one day be successful, etc. – without ever taking action. They are still experiencing the feelings they’d get if they were successful but they aren’t any closer to their dreams.

This is an overly simple description of what mental masturbation is and sadly,