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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. Continue Reading…

[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? Continue Reading…

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.

Marrying my wife was the best decision I ever made. We have an amazingly close relationship, and we’ve also had our share of ups and downs like anyone else.

Despite the luck I had marrying my wife, our relationship still takes a lot of work and patience. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I’ve also seen the ugliness that is failed relationships (I’ll spare you the details).

I’ve avoided writing about this subject for a while for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I don’t want to seem like a know-it-all or that I have relationships figured out any more than anyone else. They’re a very personal thing and your relationship will inevitably be different than mine. Secondly, just like anyone, I’m still learning myself. Continue Reading…

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: Continue Reading…