Children have always been labeled as natural day-dreamers. Caught up in a world of make-believe, they spend countless hours dreaming of far-away places and exciting adventures. As they get older, the make-believe seems to end. Or does it? Adults, unbeknownst to them, live as much in a world of make-believe as children.

How many times have you wanted to do, have, or achieve something but never do? Probably often. So many of us are “day-dreamers” — we wish for something but, because we don’t know how to make it a reality, it remains make-believe. In this post, I will share with you the process of turning your dreams into reality.

Can everyone learn this? Absolutely. But first, let’s visit the model that most people experience:

Dream—|    |—Reality

What people most often see, is a gap between the two. This is something that few manage to cross. They don’t, not because they’re not as skilled or blessed with opportunities as others, instead the reason lies with the fact that the majority do not know how to cross it. In order to make any dream become a reality in your life, there is a specific continuum that must be followed and understood which will bridge the gap between the two. And here it is:

Dream –> Goal –> Intention –> A Plan –> Action –> Attention –> Reality

Let’s visit each one:

Goal

Once we have a dream, the first step in bridging the gap is setting a date to achieve that dream. We’ve all heard that a goal is a dream with a deadline. When you have a desire to achieve or have something and you set a date for that desire to be manifested in your life, as soon as that deadline is set, your dream moves along the continuum and becomes a goal.

The SMaRTer the the goal, better. That is, it must be Specific (you know exactly what you want or where you want to be), Measurable (How much of that do you want? or What exactly is your intended outcome?), Realistic (something that you are willing and able to achieve), and Tangible (something you can experience with one of your senses - this makes it all the more measurable and attainable).

Intention

Intention is the natural outflow of a firmly stated and desired goal. The very fact that we have created a goal does not necesarily imply that we have also created intent. You could set a goal, as is the case with many new-years resolutions, without any intent on achieving it. It is only when you link a strong desire to achieving a specific goal that you reach the level of Intention on the continuum. Intention is the driving force behind turning one’s dream into reality.

Intention is also what allows the Law of attraction to work in our lives.

When you reach the level of Intention, something interesting begins to happen in your life. Thoughts, ideas and opportunities seem to come together in such a way that you begin to see how you will achieve your desired reality. It was Maxwell Maltz that said,

“Your automatic creative mechanism is teleological. That is, it operates in terms of goals and end results. Once you give it a definite goal to achieve, you can depend upon its automatic guidance system to take you to that goal much better than “you” ever could buy conscious thought. “You” supplied a goal by thinking in terms of end results. Your automatic mechanism then supplies the means whereby.”

A Plan

Now that you understand how you can achieve you desired result (you have the means whereby) in order to progress further along the continuum you must plan to use those means.

Everything that you see in the physical world has been previously created already in the non-physical world of someone’s thoughts. For example, something as simple as the chair upon which you are sitting was formed in someone’s mind long before you sat on it. Planning, in many ways, does this same type of “non-physical” creation for your desires. And by planning your course, you see (and thereby create) in your mind your intended result before it happens.

Action

Although planning is a crucial step, unless you implement that plan, it will forever remain in your non-physical mind. The next stage then, in the continuum of turning your dreams into reality, is to take action. This step is fairly self-explanatory.

Attention

Action alone, does not have the power to take your desire and turn it into its physical manifestation. Unless it is supported by your Intention, you will not continue to act on your plan. As I previously stated, Intention is the driving force behind turning one’s dream into reality. Unfortunately, Intention is not self-perpetuating. It requires a fuel to keep it alive — and that fuel is Attention.

If you’ve read my post on The Secret you would have learned that what we pay attention to expands. In other words, we attract into our lives what we dominantly think about. The key then to Attention is our mental focus. Is what you are focusing on right now contributing to your desire? If you can answer yes, then Attention is fueling Intention to achieve that desire.

As you hold your focus on your desire (through thoughts, affirmations, visualization etc.) it will continually stoke the fire of Intention which supports the whole continuum.

Reality

When enough attention is focused on your desire, and you’re acting on the plans that you’ve made, eventually a tipping point is reached and your dream becomes your reality.

Having finally reached your intended destination, what you may have noticed is that it did not come as such a big surprise as you might have imagined. The reason can be found in understanding that as you are moving along this continuum, your desire becomes so real in your mind during the process, that the physical manifestation of it seems rather anti-climactic. In many ways you have already achieved and experienced it many times over in your head.

Personal Experience

I’m currently seeing this process actively work in my life. An example of this is with this website.

One of my dreams is to one day be able to live off of passive income so that I can better serve others and follow my interests and passions. Last year,I decided in my mind that I would be living off of passive income alone by the year 2010. I set a clear goal backed by a strong desire and as a result created Intention.

As always is the case, as Intention is formed, opportunities to achieve one’s desire begin to present themselves.

Last year, in the summertime, I started blogging about my experience with the lemonade diet. Not long after I journaled that experience, I began writing other articles realated to personal development and as a result, Life Training - Online was born.

As I started getting into the blogging community, I began to realize that there were a lot of people who were making good money just from blogging alone. I saw that some bloggers were able to make a living entirely from Google Adsense ad revenues alone. This knowledge became part of my plan to achieving my dream. And since September of last year (when I started implementing Adsense on this blog) I’ve built up this site to where it averages around $30 - $40 a day ($900+) a month in revenues. Ok, so it’s not quite to the point where I can retire, however I’m beginning to see how my dream will become a reality.

In the process, I’m discovering other ways one can make a lot of passive income online.

Conclusion

Understanding the process of how to turn your dreams into reality is of utmost importance if you don’t want to be stuck in make-believe. It is through firmly stating a desired goal that you’ll spark within you the intention that provides the means whereby you can achieve your dream. And if you create a plan around those means, take action and provide attention to fuel your intention, your dream will become a reality.