Pursuing your dreams can get lonely but don’t give up!

Before you can start living your dream – you have to work for it. A lot. Gain new skills, explore areas you never thought you would have to, learn a lot, practice and make mistakes. And sometimes, pursuing your dreams can get lonely.

So you finally found your calling? Have you finally figured out who you want to be when you grow up? Or have you really always kind of known? Congratulations! This, for many, is the hardest part. But the journey only starts here. And the journey of pursuing your dreams can also get pretty lonely.

This probably is the moment of your life when you will have to really get your priorities right.

Whether it’s this career you have in mind, studying in a completely new field, building a business or in fact, building a travel/lifestyle blog – you will have to dedicate a lot of your time and energy to it.

But this is all fine. You are ready and prepared for it. You are willing to put all that hard work into it! But sooner or later the other realisation will fall on you. Pursuing your dreams can also get lonely and when this happens, you will know how much you really want it.

Thinking of starting a business?

It’s possible that your family or friends will not understand a lot of what you doing or trying to achieve.

Many of those around you are happy with their 9 to 5 jobs and Friday evenings at a boozer. With time, they will less and less understand that what you are trying to achieve consumes all your life. They will not comprehend why would you rather spend a Saturday evening writing a new article and maintaining your site instead of going out for dinner and drinks and ‘enjoying life’.

What’s more, even if you are lucky and they will support you – more likely than not – and more often than not – they will have no idea what are you talking about.

In the old days, you could ask a friend for advice – on most of the aspects of your life. Now, Mr Google, it is.

Many will think you are shooting too high. Often secretly. Many will get upset if you cancelled a night out or a day drip in order to work on a new project or enrol on this graphic design course you need in order to create a new flashy website. Many will think you will never succeed.

“The only people who will criticize you for going after your dreams are those who have given up on achieving their own.”

― Clyde Lee Dennis

And often you will think that too. How am I ever going to swim on top, in the ocean of businesses just like mine? There are so many people out there who are better and more skilled than me!

But let me tell you a secret. The clue is in being yourself and being original. There will always be a market for someone like you. And you have to start working on it to discover your true voice. Only now, after 7 months of building this site, I can finally feel that it has become more and more ‘me’.

In order to discover new lands, you have to start the journey!

You will never know how great can you be if you don’t try.

If your budget is tight you will very likely try to learn and build everything on your own, with your own resources. And this is really hard at the beginning. How can you find out, if you don’t know what you don’t know? It is like walking in the fog. I made a few very silly decisions at the beginning and I’m still paying for it, yet with time I will fix those mistakes and I will be richer in wisdom and experience. Hopefully 🙂

But it’s not all hard and daunting. There will be people who will support you no matter what.

And you will have to learn to appreciate all the resources you have. Appreciate what’s already there and stop feeling sorry for yourself that people don’t get you! That friend that becomes your first subscriber and always shares your content? It doesn’t matter they don’t know what SEO is – they support you. These things will have to matter and the rest will have to be your job.

But the way I see it, at some point we need to seek help or support. Doing anything on your own for too long can be very daunting and at times depressing. You are starting your new life, you should be excited!

It’s fine to ask for help. And as you start your journey and the longer you will do what you do, the more resources will come to appear in front of you. Suddenly you will find websites you didn’t know existed, courses you could not find before and opportunities you could not take if you didn’t put yourself out there.

“It’s a choice to put in the hours, go the extra mile, and do the things others aren’t willing to do.”

― Oscar Auliq-Ice

But this will not happen if you just sit and dream of it. It will also not happen if you give up too early.

Beginnings are hard. When you start, very likely you will have no idea what are you actually doing. And when learning becomes too challenging – is where a lot of people give up. But you can’t give up! The majority of those who didn’t succeed – gave up too early. Do what you need to do. Work on that project when your friends are out having fun! Study! Promote yourself on social media, papers, and websites! Talk about what you do even if it bores people. The opportunities will come. But you need to show up to grab it!

One of my favourite sayings of all time :

“Success occurs when opportunity meets preparation”

Zig Ziglar

Be prepared. The opportunity will come when you least expect it. You want to be ready for it.

Are you ready to chase your dreams but also go outside of your comfort zone? Read here why you definitely should!