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Most supposed productivity gurus say “do one thing.” Focus on just one thing and you’ll excel. I’ve certainly written about this before. Among some people “do one thing” is practically a religion. While focusing on one thing is great and can help you make leaps and bounds in productivity and getting things done, it can dramatically stunt your creativity. And if you don’t care about creativity, fine. But it can also make you stupid.

That’s because often the most creative ideas come from the most unexpected sources. I’ve come up with some of my best ideas in for articles on this blog, from reading books completely unrelated to personal development. Some of the best ideas I’ve had for posts have been through reading books on travel, writing and personal biographies.

Creative ADD, and my thirst to pursue writing, music, drawing, graphic design and photography has led me to have a better and more holistic eye in all areas of art. Designing has helped me realize how to use pictures to have a better impact in blog posts. Studying lyrics and the structure of songs has helped me become better at understanding the flow of writing stories. Drawing helped me realize the patience and attention to detail necessary when crafting a melodic rhythm. All these different creative endeavors has led me not to be spread more thin between them, but has enhanced my ability throughout all of them.

Now, I’m not saying more is always better. There is a certain limit reached when chasing too many ambitions will lead you to accomplishing next to nothing at all. You have to devote a certain amount of time to becoming proficient at each.

I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying “jack of all trades, master of none.” While this is true to an extent, there is also much to be gained from delving into many different aspirations. I’m not saying that knowledge you learned from say, cliff hanging, will give you lessons on how to be a better father. But you’ll have a much more diverse pool of experience to draw from. If all work and no play makes jack a dull boy, all working on one thing makes him even duller.

Another benefit to creative ADD is that by pursuing many different things, you dramatically increase your chances of finding your true love. If you don’t take the chance to explore and experiment with many different things, you likely will never know where your life’s purpose lies. I receive a lot of email from people asking them about how to find their life purpose. I tell them to follow their heart and try a lot of different things. They usually come back with the response “I don’t want to invest time into something and find out that I don’t like it after all.” This seems like it makes sense but it’s so counter to the truth. If you don’t take the risk of trekking down the many avenues of your heart’s desires, you’ll have no compass to orient yourself with.

So maybe you don’t want to have long-term add. Maybe you don’t want to mess around, “wasting time” trying to find your passion and you expect it to come in an illuminated golden dreamlike scene where God appears out of the sky and writes it in the clouds for you. Good luck with that.

If you’re like me, this is something you’ve struggled with: to focus on one thing or to explore many different options. I thought I had to choose. I didn’t want to waste all that time right? What I discovered is sometimes the answer isn’t either or. You can have the best of both, and avoid the extremes of each spectrum.

What I’ve started doing with multiple interests is choosing a major and minor sub-focuses. If I’m really interested in writing, drawing, playing drums and copywriting, I’ll have to figure out what my biggest priority is. If it’s writing, I’ll spend the majority of my time doing that, say 70%. The rest of my time is split up between the other areas of interest.

Try to find out if you’re holding yourself back by single focusing too much. Is your obsession with minimizing risk forcing you to settle for a job you only kind of like? What else might be out there? The more things you try, the more chances you have to discover your fullest potential. Of course, there’s a point of diminishing returns. I’m not recommending that you try everything on this list. But it might not hurt to diversify your intelligence. It certainly didn’t hurt Da Vinci.

I thought I’d change things up a little here. I’m working on this really exciting ebook right now that’s a step by step guide for making your dreams a reality. It’s going to be really awesome, but I need your help.

So I want to ask you:

What’s the biggest obstacle for you, in making your dreams a reality?

Post your answer in the comments. And if you’d like, I’ll try to give you some advice on how to help you remove those roadblocks. If you want a response from me, just say so in your comment. I may not be able to respond to everyone, but I’ll do my best.

I know I’m not the only one who has trouble staying focused. It seems the more technology advances, the more our attention is pulled in a zillion different directions.

We all have dreams, goals, and desires. We know that in order to make them a reality, we have to take consistent action toward them. Knowing what you want isn’t enough.

Not knowing ceases to matter when you’re able to move in the direction of your dreams, even when you don’t really know what your doing. It’s the movement in that direction that matters the most.

The problem is, we lack focus. It’s hard to keep a laser sharp focus on your dreams, when there seems to be so many other urgent things to take care of. We need to wash the dishes, write that email to your sister, print those forms and return that phonecall. Without focus, or a constant reminder of what’s important, we’re likely to get sucked into the seemingly urgent things in life. Another day goes by and we wonder where the time went. We wonder why, yet again, we neglected to take action in the direction of our dreams.

Days can turn into weeks. And weeks can turn into years.

If you don’t have trouble focusing on your goals and dreams, you can stop reading this now. This article is not for you. However, if you’re like me and you need a constant reminder to take action to accomplish your goals, this is for you.

I mentioned the Dream Wizard, at the end of my last post in the series on making your dreams a reality. The awesome thing about this simple piece of software, is it keeps you focused on what matters. It gives you constant little reminders to remember to take action toward your dreams. It keeps you in check and allows your brain to rest at ease, knowing that you no longer have to remind yourself. You’ve got something else to do that for you now.

It only takes 5 minutes (maximum) to setup the reminders for your dreams. You insert whatever text you want for the reminder, or you can record your own voice to remind you. Then you select a powerful image (drag and drop onto the screen, it’s super easy) to go along with your goal. After that, you tell the program how often you would like it to remind you. If you have serious goal ADD like me, you might want to make it every 15 minutes. If you’re not as attention deficit as some of us, you might want to make it every 2 hours.

After you’re done setting it up, you’re done. Now ever 30 minutes (or however often you set it) you’ll be reminded to stay focused on what’s important. You’re now re-programming your subconscious to shift its focus on what really matters.

I’ve been using this program for a few weeks now and it’s helped me totally shift my actions. I spend more time working on what really matters to me, instead of spinning my wheels, becoming distracted on the next thing that comes up. When you focus more of your attention and efforts on your goals, your actions will snowball.

If you’re having trouble staying focused on your goals or if you procrastinate, I highly recommend this product.

The Dream Wizard is regularly priced at $99.95, but I’ve worked out a special deal for Illuminated Mind readers. Until the end of the month, if you order through this affiliate link, you’ll get 40% off the original price.

Click Here to Order the Dream Wizard Now for 40% Off.

What’s even more awesome, is if at anytime you’re not happy with the product within a full year (that’s just crazy) you can get a full refund. No questions asked.

Since there’s pretty much no risk, I highly recommend you get this software and unleash the secret to making your dreams a reality.

Click Here to Order the Dream Wizard Now for 40% Off.

[Note: This is the 4th and final article in the series How to Make Your Dreams a Reality.]

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. — Henry David Thoreau

So, now that you’ve created a dream sanctuary, stopped doing what works, and found your purpose, it’s time to start laying the foundation for your dreams. The reason I wanted to go through those articles first before getting to this part is because of an important distinction between people that accomplish their dreams and those that don’t.

The people that accomplish their dreams realize the obstacles between them are not physical limitations, but psychic ones. They’ve overcome the social conditioning that’s told them their dreams are impossible or frivolous. They’ve discovered their true purpose and their passion. And they’ve found a place to keep their dreams safe, while they strive toward making them a reality. Read more

The typical nature of all personal development blog posts is to define a problem, then propose a solution.

I’m not going to do that here.

We spend a lot of times trying to improve things in our lives. We want better, more, faster, bigger, cooler, and on and on. So is there a time when more is not the answer? Is there a time when solving something wrong with your life is detrimental, because you could be spending that time enjoying all the right things about it?

I could say something really obvious like, be content with what you have, or accept yourself for who you are.

I’m not going to do that here.

Instead I want to ask you: Read more