Everybody has dreams, but are you going to add your dreams into this graveyard or are you going to turn your dreams into reality? What if your dreams are here for a reason?

Dreams and How to Achieve Them

Achieving dreams is the best route to happiness and satisfaction. Everybody has a big dream about their lives, but not only one dream; we have multiple dreams and things that we would like to achieve. But the problem is that too many great dreams cancel each other out. We are always trying to do more things at one time, working on different dreams in one moment, with every dream pushing us into a different direction. And usually, we are not going anywhere and we feel endlessly conflicted.

Ask yourself: What is your biggest dream? And what will you do to achieve it?

Some of us have so many dreams in our minds, we don’t know where to start. Whether the decision be to run a marathon, swim with sharks or run with bulls, fulfillment always starts with the identification of one single goal. Pick one of your goals and then set out to accomplish it. Most people are failing because their focus is spread in too many directions. If you have one big dream, you are going in one direction and you are moving quickly to reach it.

The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream. – Les Brown

Steps to find out what your dreams are:

Write them down.

Think about them and write them all down. On paper they will be more real than in your head. When you see all of them, pick the biggest one that you would like to achieve.

Believe it is achievable.

Optimism is absolutely required for dream fulfillment. If you believe it’s possible, then it is possible. End of story.

Do your research.

Google the stories relating to your dream. Inspire yourself by stories of people who have done or are doing what you want to do. Find out how they followed their own dreams and you can learn how you can do it.

Aim higher.

Don’t settle with small goals, always try to achieve more. Big goals are going to motivate you and even if you do not get 100% results, you will still be amazed by the outcome.

Focus on important things.

Anything which isn’t top priority now can be done later. Watch out for other things that you also want. You can work on these later, but the priority should be only the one goal, one dream.

Say NO to other opportunities.

Say no to all the other opportunities that life presents to you. If you are spending your time on parties, you are taking your time away from working on your dream. I know it’s not easy.

Ask for help.

On the way you will be facing a few obstacles. But don’t let your pride be the one obstacle that keeps you from your goal. Ask for help. Every person or piece of information could play a significant role in helping you to accomplish your dream. But you only need one person in this world to believe in you – yourself.

Identify obstacles.

You need to ask yourself, what is really important for achieving your dreams? Are you doing this because you would like to get respect, impress your girlfriend/boyfriend, or earn enough money so you don’t have to work after you are 40 years old? Try to find what is stopping you from following your dream.

Set goals, prepare the plan.

Create plans and set clear goals and how to reach them. This plan with goals becomes your road map, and with every milestone you will see how close you are to your dream. Write out a small, measurable, action step so that you have your plan to make the dreams your reality!

Set a deadline.

Deadlines force us to take the action. If you would like to run a marathon, you need to start preparing for that, and you can have plan to run a marathon within six months. Mark every success in your calendar and you will see your improvement and how close you are to your goal. A dream without a deadline is just a wish.

Why are people not following their dreams?

It will take a lot of time.

Yes, it will take time and some dreams can take more time than you expected. Some of my dreams took me two to five years to achieve them. Some dreams will take me 10 years, but there is no reason to let them go. To follow your dreams is hard work and it will take time, so be prepared for this.

I wonder what people will think about me and my dreams.

Achieving your dream is not easy and there will be lots of people around you who are going to tell you, you are going to fail, it’s a stupid idea, etc. It’s going to happen, but it is really important to honor your dream and follow your path. While at the same time you can encourage the dreams of those around you. Sometimes the way you chose to follow your dream could be totally different from what’s expected by those around you. Your dreams and your actions define you. If you do what others tell you to do, then you’re letting them define you. “Don’t let someone else’s opinion of you become your reality.” (Les Brown)

It is a hell of a lot of fun proving the world wrong, so why would you listen to other people?

Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group, presented his idea to 24 friends. 23 out of the 24 friends told him to drop the idea, for a multitude of reasons like: ‘you do not know anything about the internet;’ ‘you do not have the start-up capital for this,’ etc. He followed his dream, worked hard, and the result is his highly successful internet-based businesses.

Roger Bannister (runner) – In the 1940s, the mile record was 4:01, and for many years it was widely believed to be impossible for a human to run one mile in under four minutes. It was believed that the four minute mile was a physical barrier that no man could break. On the 6th of May 1954, during an athletic meeting, Roger Bannister ran a mile. Everyone believed that the four-minute mile was impossible. Everyone, except Bannister. Bannister had finished in 3:59.4. He broke the world record and did what so many believed was impossible. When the barrier was broken, other runners saw that it was possible and then 16 runners went on to do they same. His record lasted only 46 days after John Landy beat his time.

I have different priorities now.

Remember when you decided you wanted to learn to play piano, improve your French, etc? (Replace “playing piano, improve your French” with anything else.) But then you were distracted by something or somebody else? Why did you stop? Don’t stop chasing your dreams or replace them by the dreams of somebody else. Don’t say “I will work on my dreams tomorrow.” What is not started today is never finished tomorrow, stay focused.

It’s unrealistic.

What exactly does “unrealistic” mean? You are not able to reach your dream because of money, experience, or you to will need more people to help you to reach your goal? And how do you know it’s unrealistic? Did you ever try to work on that? You tried and failed? Well, that can be a good thing, as long as you try again and learn from your mistakes. But be realistic, if your dream is to run a marathon, it’s unrealistic to sign up for one next week unless you’ve already done several months of training. But if you want to do it, just try it. Running a marathon starts with running one mile.

I don’t have money for it.

If you don’t have money for it, any savings, you need to plan how to get them. You can find investors. People might be amazed by your dream, and they can help you for free or land you the money. You need to start creating the opportunity and they can lead you in some amazing places with inspiring people. We fear failure and the unknown, or that we will need to start over, but there are no guarantees in life. The only thing that will be there is regret if you are not going to try to pursue your dream.

I am too old.

You are never too old to dream. Age means nothing when you know what you want. And if you have courage to try, get it!

Why to follow your dreams?

Following your dreams helps you to take risks, keeps you thinking big, keeps you motivated, and gives you a reason to get out of bed every morning. Pursuing them will help you to develop new skills as you will be required to do things you’ve never done before, you going to meet interesting people and try new things. And it will help you to believe the unbelievable, and see the possible in the seemingly impossible.

• You’ve always wanted to follow your dream!
• If you don’t chase your dreams, you will regret it later.
• You will realize the incredible things you are capable of doing.
• You’ll experience things you never could have imagined during the pursuit of your dream. You will meet amazing people; maybe even the love of your life.
• If you don’t follow your dreams, you destroy your dreams; it’s really simple.
• Chasing your dreams will develop your courage. It’s going to help you in life and at some point your dream will mean so much to you that nothing can stop you from achieving it.
• Following your dreams doesn’t always turn out as you planned, but trust me, that makes them even more memorable.
• You become an inspiration and your dreams will inspire others to follow their dreams.
• People remember those who follow their dreams. So if you want to be remembered, you need to follow your dreams.
• Every day you will learn new things.
• Because no one is going to follow your dreams for you.

I am not saying that you need to throw everything out, change your job and start working only on your dreams. Do what gives you joy, but dreams can give your life purpose and following them can be fun. If you have big or small dreams, never give up on them! And don’t allow failure to kill your dreams. Keep dreaming!

And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. – Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

What’s holding you back from pursuing your dreams? What are your dreams?

Personal branding is how you present yourself to others. It is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Personal branding is a powerful tool for professional success. Everybody brands the qualities that make them different and unique, moreover, building a recognizable personal brand opens new professional opportunities. During personal branding process, your will have the opportunity to discover these qualities, strengthen them and market them. It’s just a process to raise your profile and show your talents to a wider audience.

Your personal brand, like a company’s, is the image that employers connect with you. Your resume, LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, public profile, etc. convey your personal brand. Many people think that personal branding is just for celebrities such as Kim Kardashian, Kate Perry, Lady Gaga or Beyoncé. However, we are our own personal brand and we can also use the same tactics as the big names to make ourselves known.

Online and Offline World of Your Personal Brand

Online World

Social media can provide passive channels for sharing knowledge and updates about your latest success, but they can be also the main source that is going to affect your career in the bad way. Face it, prospective clients and employers are Googling you! Are they going to find something that sets you apart from the crowd in the good or bad way? Have you ever Googled yourself?

Your online reputation and perception is really influential in almost every hiring process and your digital identity can literally determine whether you get hired. Sometimes, it can also determine whether you get fired. (Oh, you had great success at work that you mentioned on LinkedIn and you get new recommendations from your customers, congratulations! But what about the party pictures from Facebook where you were drunk?)

Recruiters, head hunters and employers can often make assumptions on your personality based on your online social media input.

Don’t forget that your personal brand is also connected with and affecting the company brand. For more information, see the LinkedIn article “Your Employees are Your Ambassadors”.

Personal Blog

Having your own blog is a great way to build brand awareness online. That is if you are writing about the industry where you are working, sharing interesting tips and content. People could take you as an expert in that field. Your blog will help you increase awareness about your person. Your posts can be shared by others and they can help you to introduce yourself to a wider audience (recruiters, headhunters, etc.)

LinkedIn

Whether you like it or not, LinkedIn is an essential tool for your career. It is your personal online resume, but it could be also used as a portfolio of your work (graphics, presentations, videos, articles, etc.). This can encourage people to click and find out more about you and your work. Post the content on a regular basis so that recruiters and potential employers can see you. Keep it relevant, up-to-date, and definitely succinct. There is no need to post information about every voluntary work or that two years ago, you won a hot dog eating contest. Customizing your profile picture, headline, and choosing a custom URL can help you be more noticeable on LinkedIn. But don’t forget to keep your LinkedIn up-to-date.

Twitter

Twitter is more informal than LinkedIn, but it’s a great space where you can meet new people and a wider audience. You can also easily promote your brand to new contacts, potential employers, or recruiters. But make sure that you keep your Twitter account professional because no employer likes reading some weird tweets. And don’t forget, every tweet could be found. Also, the tweet that you posted two years ago.

Instagram / Pinterest

Of course, everybody should be allowed the freedom to share pictures with friends but it is always common sense not to post pictures from wild parties.

Facebook

Facebook is a private place where you share updates with your friends, however, make sure you have a suitable photograph and header image. You can have an extra private Facebook account, but still, people will be able to find both images. If you have your colleagues on Facebook, they can easily share your posts and pictures and you won’t be able to stop the sharing.

Check your privacy settings and close your Facebook from public views. Every post you send, every status update you make, every picture you share, contributes to your personal brand.

Ask yourself what would someone find on your Facebook if they went digging through your whole profile?

Sharing

One of the best ways to promote you is sharing content on social networks. You can use the opportunity to promote your work accomplishments, skills, and your brand. But think twice before you post something, because you can easily affect your career in the bad way.

A Short Story (how to affect your personal brand in the wrong way):

A person I knew got an inMail from a company. I don’t know what was the reason behind it, but the person was offended by this inMail/offer, so he replied in a kind of weird way: should he start working for the company, he would request a red carpet with his name on it and other crazy things like that. He thought that it was funny, but his reply was shared through the HR community and started to live its own life. Sadly enough, it is going to affect his future career even if this person has a huge potential.

Don’t kill your personal brand and the brand of your company when you can do great things. And think twice before you publish a post, because once it’s on the Internet, it will be there forever.

Networking

Contacts are often a great source of opportunity, from putting new experiences your way to giving you access to useful resources. From time to time, make time for a lunch chat with someone who can help your career, try to build relationships with as many people as possible. Keep valuable contacts fresh. When people are going to talk about you in a positive way, it will help your personal brand to grow stronger. Your personal brand is reflected in what people say about you after they meet you. Having a positive personal brand has always been a good idea!

Offline World

Resume

Your offline world is your resume which is another great place to communicate your brand identity.

Business Cards

Business cards are still a great way to introduce yourself to new people. Business cards are also a part of the brand, because you are using them for your networking. Get a professional, unique looking business card.

Ready to Build Your Brand?

The key to a successful personal brand is to identify what differentiates you, determine what you want your brand to be. Ask yourself what do you wish for people to associate with you when they think of your name? What do they see when they search for you on Google or social sites? What are you unique in?

Do a Brand Audit

Don’t just Google yourself. Check all your social accounts and see what strangers see when they search for you on these social networks.

Identify What Makes You Different

Find out why you are unique. What are yours special skills and talents?

You Need to Be the Best!

Every good brand involves the notion of expertise. You need to create the perception that you are very good at what you do. And it doesn’t matter what the field is. However, continue with your studies and learning. If you are not learning and improving, you can be expert today but not tomorrow.

Be Confident

If you have confidence in your abilities and believe you can get that job or get that promotion, then this will show through.

Share Your Accomplishments

Don’t say “I am the best car dealer in whole city”, share some success stories. Everybody loves a good story, so share something about you and your accomplishments. Others need to recognize you as a “best car dealer”.

Personal Brand

Don’t forget that your personal brand is communicated every time you interact with another individual (online or offline). And as you continue to develop your personal brand, stay consistent with your efforts. Keep in mind that your personal brand is your reputation and that people will seek you out for your knowledge and expertise.

Be authentic! You are in charge of your brand.

Your company can have a great product, perfect marketing, and amazing sales, but the only real asset that company has is their people. These people creating the brand of the company and benefits of a strong brand are tremendous.

These days, employees are actively engaging on social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Ello, and many others. You can easily find everybody on Google and connected information with your company. And all your employees are part of your brand whether you like it or not. Employees can become your company’s most important and loyal brand ambassadors, but without proper training or strategy, your people can kill your brand in a second.

Good brands also have amazing effects on candidates. If you were approached by Google or Amazon, you would immediately say, “Yes, I want to know more.” But if you are approached by an unknown company, there is a very huge probability that you would hesitate with your reply and miss an amazing opportunity.

Some companies are using brand ambassadors when trying to build a strong corporate brand. Brand ambassadors are employees that are thoroughly engaged, connected, and committed to the company brand. Personally, I believe that EVERY employee is an important part of your brand because a group can help you build a strong brand, but only one person could kill it. So that’s why brand engagement is critical, and it comes with many benefits.

People in sales and marketing already know that good branding is good for sales. But in recruitment, you are not selling goods. You are selling the image of the company and why it is cool to work for that company, because everybody would like to work for great company with good reputation.

Building a strong brand requires that all employees feel connected with the company and corporate brand.

Educate Your Employees

Turning employees into brand ambassadors requires more than just Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or any other account. Your employees need to know how they are connected with the company brand and what your company and business stand for. So it’s good to refresh from time to time information from onboarding because your company is evolving, and you can give your people new information. For recruitment purposes, the employees are the most credible source of information about the company. That’s also the reason why referrals are working better than the job boards. You will also trust your friend if he is going to tell you whether the company is good or bad.

Provide Training

Not everyone is a born marketer or interested in marketing. But if you want your employees to become better ambassadors, provide some basic marketing training for them.

Create Rules for Your Social Media Policy

While it’s important for guidelines to be in place, don’t invent too many restrictions. Keep the no-no’s to a minimum. Create social media policy that encourages sharing and eliminates fear. Every employee needs to feel confident about any social sharing guidelines to be a good brand ambassador. Trust your people!

Keep Your People Excited about the Brand

Don’t make your employees search for content to share. Create an internal page with material for social websites. Communicate with your people regarding what is going on and what the strategies are. Let’s them ask, encourage questions, and find out what they want to know. They can promote new, exciting things that are coming from your company, and they can easily create positive online buzz. Getting your employees involved is vital for any brand.

Community Involvement

Encourage and help your employees to be active in their community. Give them company T-shirts to wear or stickers. Is there is a special event, and only a few of your people are going? Just give them some branded, funny freebies they can shares with their new friends. It’s a great ice breaker and possibility for your people to leave a good impression about your company.

Personal Brands

Maybe you never heard term personal brands, but almost everybody is working on theirs personal brands. Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. You are building your personal brand every day. And some companies understand that personal brands are connected with the company brands. When employees are clear about who they are and what makes them exceptional in the company structure, they can use their skills, and knowledge to activate the company branding goals. Each person is unique and will be able to find his unique way in helping your branding activities.

Hashtags

Natalie Kessler from Adobe had an amazing idea. She started to promote the lifestyle that comes when you are working for Adobe. The idea is simple and brilliant! Employees on Twitter are using hashtag #adobelife. They are adding this tag into their Tweets so everybody can find posts of Adobe employees. They are sharing updates using the hashtag with their colleagues, friends, family, products, etc. Also, you can use this hashtag on T-shirts, stickers, etc.

Check the Results

Check and monitor your branding activities, so you can find what is working. There are many tools for these activities, but I like these two tools. Agora Pulse is a toolbox for Facebook and Twitter, and this tool brings together all information from anywhere on the web where your company is mentioned so that you can see information about your brand in real time. Second great tool for creating the enterprise social networking community is Socialcast. This app brings executives and employees together in a two-way dialogue in unified workspace. Break down barriers across locations and job titles by giving everyone a voice.

Reward Sharing

It’s important to recognize employees who are bringing the brand to life within the organization. If you see that your sales are going up because of an employee’s activity, support him and give him a special reward. Engaged employees who successfully represent the company brand provide a competitive advantage to your business and big value. And as you already know, people are motivated by praise and prizes.

Benefits from a Recruitment Perspective

• Viral power of social networks to reach millions of candidates.
• Retain and attract talent.
• Better trust between managers and employees.
• Help to build better employee culture and teams.
• Reduced recruitment costs (adverts, agencies).

Don’t forget

• Trust employees to use their judgment.
• Make it easy (rules and processes).
• Be transparent in all communications.
• Give employees the information they need.
• Communicate frequently.
• Train your employees.

With the right encouragement and trust from management, employees can become your company’s most important and loyal brand ambassadors. And this could help to clear channels of communication throughout the company. Employees are more likely to feel positive, empowered, and able to make a huge difference. Turn every person in the company into brand ambassadors, and it’s not going to help only your brand, but your people, who will be more connected with your company.

A great company culture breeds happy people, and happy people are amazing employees.

Thomas A. Edison was a great man, for some people he is a real inspiration. He developed many amazing devices that greatly influenced life around the world, he has 1,093 US patents in his name and his most well-known invention is the electric light bulb.

For me he is also an inspiration, not because of all the amazing gadgets, but because he wasn’t afraid to fail. He knew that failure wasn’t a fatal thing. Actually, he knew that failure is required for innovation.

Just ask yourself: “How many times have you looked back on your life, thought of mistakes you’ve made, and kicked yourself over them?” And be honest with yourself.

Personally, I have had many failures in my life. Work-related, connected with relationships, basically the same things that everyone experiences. Yes, sometimes, it is hard, sometimes you would like to turn back time and change the decision, but life goes on as it should.

Fear of failure prevents many people from following their dreams or having a go at something new. People are afraid of changing a job, worried that the new job will be worse that the current one. People are sometimes afraid to move (because of their job or relationship) from one city to another just because they are going to lose their friends; what if the job or relationship doesn’t work out and they need to build everything from scratch. People are afraid to try new things because of the magical “What if…?”

This fear of failure is a failure in itself because it holds back the success that comes with the change. History has shown that the most successful exploits frequently came on the back of failure. I already mentioned Thomas Edison and his light bulb invention. There was an interview when a reporter asked Mr. Edison: “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison responded: “I didn’t fail 1,000 times; the light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.” What others see as a failure could be a massive success in the end.

Why failure is good:

Failure helps you learn new things

I’m sure you’ve heard the term, “learn from your mistakes.” So without making them, how can you learn? Some of our most memorable lessons come from these mistakes. Failure is the fastest way we learn.

Failure creates new opportunities

Failures often bring unforeseen opportunities that would not have been available without the failure in the first place. My favorite story is about Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba Group. He was rejected for a job at KFC in Hangzhou. And when he returns from the United States he started a company called China Pages. This company did not succeed and he failed. But a few years later, he tried again with Alibaba. And now he has made it into the world’s 100 richest men. I am pretty sure that everybody would like to fail like him, right?

Failure makes you stronger and helps you grow

In a job or in a relationship when you have experienced failure, you are not the same as you were before you tried. And you don’t know how strong you are until you have tried and failed. Never giving up after you fail will make you grow stronger to achieve your goals. We need to take failure as a part of success; nobody can achieve success if you have never failed along the way. If you failed in a job, you would still work and still try to be better. And the same goes for a relationship, even if you failed, you are still going to fall in love in the future and you will try harder next time, doing more, and being better. You are just going to grow and become stronger, well, definitely wiser. You will learn from your mistakes.

Failure makes you braver

Everybody is afraid of failure. And it’s usually fear of the unknown that actually holds people back, but once they’ve made it through a first failure, it won’t feel as scary the next time they try something new. Failure can make you braver in the face of opposition. By taking more chances, you’ll build the courage to keep trying, again and again, every failure until you meet with success.

Two of my favorite failures

Columbus during his first voyage, instead of reaching Japan as he had intended, he landed in a New World. And visited San Salvador in The Bahamas (which he was convinced was Japan). And the whole world knows him as somebody who discovered the new continent. Well, that’s a pretty good failure to me.

Alexander Fleming’s accidental discovery helped him to discover antibiotics and all because he failed with his lab experiment.

Failure in life is as inevitable as the sun coming up tomorrow. But failure is the stepping stone to success. I would rather fail and fail, again and again, than have to give up on my dreams. Some of my dreams took me 5 years to achieve them and I failed many times along the way. So chase your dreams. People around you always try to “help you” with words like “yes; you tried, let it go”. But don’t listen to them, because no matter how many failures you had along the way, in the end there is success waiting for you. Success is meant to be hard because failing is easy.

And don’t forget what Zig Ziglar (American author) once said: “Failure is an event, not a person”. If you fail and if you didn’t continue, that’s the ultimate failure. So don’t be afraid to fail, if you fail and you do, just fail fast and fail forward.