It's easy to be a dreamer.
There's no work or effort involved, you just think about how great it will be one day. Sometimes you talk about it. You might even share your dream with a friend, but that's the extent of it.
"Wouldn't it be nice if..." is usually how dreams start. There's zero risk, zero chance of failure, and zero chances of you getting hurt by just dreaming.
And there is zero opportunity for you to ever reach that dream by simply dreaming about it.
Dreams are worthless without action.
In NFL history, no player has ever scored a touchdown from their minds on the sideline. No one has ever made a hole-in-one from a table inside the Pro Shop. It’s never been done – it will never be done because of one simple rule:
You have to actually compete on the playing surface to win.
Like a marathoner – the only way you run a marathon is to actually run a marathon. You can think about running at work. You can imagine running at night while lying in bed. But unless you actually put your shoes on the pavement and start moving forward, you aren’t running. You’re still on the sidelines.
You just can’t do BIG things in sports - or life - from the sidelines.
It’s not possible.
Dreams are endless. Opportunities are not. When these special, crucial junctions in our life appear, our choices to keep dreaming - or start competing - can impact our entire life’s course.
It’s like a snowball effect. If we choose the path of least resistance – continuing to dream about our goals instead of act on them - then, when faced with that same choice again in the future, it becomes easier to choose that wrong one. We keep dreaming and talking about what we want to accomplish instead of putting in the work necessary to actually accomplish it.
Every “safe” choice becomes easier to make, leading us down a road of unhappiness and neglected dreams until one day, we look up, and find ourselves angry and hurt by the position we are in, that we don’t know any way out. So we live angry and hurt, lashing out at the world - all because of the choices we made to keep dreaming and never do.
But if every “safe” choice becomes easier to make – won’t every great choice be easier as well?
Lean into discomfort
Each time we lean into that discomfort and take action, we more quickly recognize why it’s the better choice and we are able to more quickly choose the right one.
Making the harder choice right now, knowing it will get easy the next time because we’ll be that much closer to our goal – and the farther we down the road of action we take, the less likely you’ll feel that pull to quit.
We’ll face tough decisions, but we’ll recognize them as such, and lean toward what’s best for us – not what’s easy.
We'll get off the couch and quit dreaming, and instead start competing. While others continue to tell you about the things "they'll get to one day," you'll be on the road up ahead already a day closer to achieving that which you set in your mind to achieve.
Dream big. But live bigger.
I'm by no means discrediting big dreams. Dreams can be crucial north stars which we focus on - but dreams without action are useless. They're simply fairy tales we think we want - but our actions say we don't.
Competitors aren't dreamers - Competitors are doers.
They call their dreams "goals," because while dreams may happen "one day," goals have deadlines of "this day." Competitors take their goals, map out a plan of action, and get to work achieving them.
Competitors dream of big goals - but they live bigger in how they compete to achieve them.
Don't be like everyone else this week, talking about your dreams and simply doing nothing about them.
Everyone lacks "more time."
Everyone lacks "more resources."
Everyone can give us a hundred excuses about how they'll get to it "next week."
But not Competitors.
Be someone who inspires others by doing something about your dream - this week, when it's inconvenient, when you're not 100% ready, and when it's so much easier to procrastinate.
Be THAT Competitor who dreams big - but lives BIGGER.
Compete Every Day.