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[Note: This is the 2nd article in the series How to Make Your Dreams a Reality.]

I’ve wasted a lot of time in my life doing what works. I can’t count how many times I’ve used this excuse to stall pursuing my dreams.

• I went to college because that’s just “what works.”
• I go to a job and sit in a cubicle for 8 hours a day because “it works.”
• I don’t work on the weekends because I feel I need to reward myself for a week’s worth of drudgery. I have to say… “it just works.”
• I do the expected things. I try to make art because I’m supposed to be creative. I read because I’m supposed to learn. I dress a certain way because I’m supposed to be cool.

It’s not working. Read more

[Note: This is the 1st article in the series How to Make Your Dreams a Reality.]

We have all had incredible dreams at some point in our lives. As children there are no limits to our imagination. We want to become a space ranger, a superhero or a magical medicine woman that saves lives and whisks people off to safety in the face of impending danger.

When we’re young we’re told that we can be that space ranger or have that amazing life that we dream up in our racecar bunk bed. We can do anything we want if we put our mind to it. Right? Read more

Let’s face it, in our society the dreamer isn’t usually the most popular person. Contributing to the economy (shopping) and being productive (being a cubicle slave) are more esteemed than people with silly dreams and frivolous aspirations.

But if we can’t live our dreams, what the point of life? Simply to survive?

I want more than survival. I want more than security. I want to actually wake up and be excited about my life.

In order to do that, we have to shed ourselves from all the shoulds society has placed on us. We have to have the courage to do things that are beyond our known powers. We have to have the guts to forget what we think we can do and what others think is possible.

You can’t solve a problem at the same level of thinking as you created it.

We need to move to a different level of thinking if we want to live our dreams, instead of fantasizing about them. We have to transcend the mindset of limitation and ascend to the mindset of liberation.

So that’s why I’m starting this series on Living Your Dreams. Over the course of the next few weeks I’ll be posting each article in this series. You can bookmark this page to check back for new articles, or simply subscribe to the feed for updates.

Here’s what we’re going to need to learn::

1. How to Create a Dream Sanctuary. (How to start believing your dreams are possible, again).
2. The Number One Dream Killer: Doing What Works. How to renounce the mainstream and embrace the unstream.
3. How to Find Your Purpose. Because if you don’t know what your purpose is, what’s the point?
4. Making Your Dream a Reality. Ie. how to stop making them just a fantasy.

Check back here in the next few days for the first post in the series. Let’s make our dreams a reality and not just a forgotten wish.

For free updates on how to live your dreams subscribe to Illuminated Mind.

Each day we fight institutions, advertisers, and social norms for the ownership of our minds. Most of us live our lives with partially free minds. We’ll claim our freedom as long as our comfort zone is not violated. We rebel when the risk is minimal.

To ensure the freedom of your mind, here are 7 rules to help guide you. If you feel like any of these don’t apply to you, please break them.

1. Don’t be a tool.

Conformity and social acceptability is the natural enemy of the free mind.

We live our lives based on templates of what we think we should do. We take jobs we don’t want because they make us feel important (even though they make us hate our lives). We try to fit a role based on society and other peoples expectations. The only way to reclaim the freedom of your mind is to stop living your life by a template and pave your own way.

Most people defer the ownership of their minds simply because they are afraid to be different. They’re afraid of being noticed and they’re afraid of what people will think about them. The only person’s opinion you should care about is your own. Everyone else is secondary.

Read more

People spend vast amounts of time (and sometimes their whole life) wrestling with their minds, trying to figure out if their dreams are practical or ridiculous. Eventually most people give up, because they simply couldn’t make a decision.

The single biggest reason for unaccomplished goals and unfulfilled dreams, is the lack of ability to make a serious commitment. How many times in your life have you not done what you wanted to do, simply because you couldn’t make up your mind?

Putting yourself on auto-response (which I will explain in a minute) is about finding the means to silence your practical mind’s constant decision weighing and follow your heart, no matter how terrifying it may seem.

Most people know what their ideal life would look like. Most people know what they want and how the life of their dreams would look, feel and taste.

So if everyone knows what they want, what stops people from achieving their dreams? What could possibly stop them from leaving a dead end job and dropping unwanted commitments? It’s not that they don’t know what they want, they just don’t know how to get there.

Read more