Have You Given Up On Your Dreams?

When you were little, what did you dream about?

I ask my coaching clients this question and you would be surprised to hear that almost always, a handful of them don’t answer. Why? Who knows… maybe they forgot, or they’re too embarrassed to share or worse – they simply just gave up. That last one kills me.

A lot of people are unhappy with their lives and family situations. They go through the daily grind, complain about being busy, summer’s almost over, etc. etc. But I find that the missing piece in all of their stories is a lack of direction. A lack of motivation. A lack of goals!  

Is your family DREAMING BIG? Do you have a shared purpose? Have you stated your Mission, Vision and Values? Do your goals align?

There is a moment I always look back on… Dom and Carly (our 14 year old twins) were just babies. I was standing in our old kitchen, in our old house and literally had tears in my eyes. Lisa was tired. I was tired. We were direction-less. And that is part of why we were exhausted.  Doing the work to do the work. But I thought to myself, it doesn’t have to be this way!  As exhausted as we were- I still felt so blessed. So lucky. So grateful. And then I realized: we can do the work–TOGETHER–if we just align our directions, our dreams of what we want our family to be. Lisa and I had to sit down and get intentional. We had to figure it all out, asking each other, “What are we trying to do as a family?” “What are our dreams?” “How are we going to get there?” “What am I going to do?” “What are YOU going to do?”

If you’ve been following Dare 2 Dad, then you know that I always talk about Mission, Vision and Values. The reason is: this is where it all begins!

Stating your Mission is important because it creates unity. When we have unity in our family, it is the most powerful tool. It’s also much easier to model the behavior if we have a stated mission. It’s knowing your family’s reason for being that creates the foundation for everything else. What do you stand for?

When we create Vision in our family we are asking people to dream. What can it possibly be like? What could the life we want look like? There’s nothing more powerful in the world than dreaming big. And as a parent, I want to try and inspire my kids to aim for something bigger than themselves. I can’t do that without a shared vision.

So once we have a purpose, an intention and a big dream, how do we get there? We get there through the Values and guideposts. The hardest part about Values is that they are a two-way street. I can’t just say them- I have to live them– because since the beginning of time, kids have followed what they see, more than what they’ve heard. And you don’t have to make it so complicated. When I work with families, businesses and teams, you get 7 words or less!  Because simple gets done. Simple gets remembered.

The hard part about M/V/V is that is has been overused so much that it has lost its true meaning. It is easy to saym but hard to live. Our mission at Dare 2 Dad is to empower families.  That’s it. We want to share with families really fun and cool things so that they feel empowered to take some of those and make it their own. We believe that if we stay true to that mission, then more families will have unity and intention and that just makes a better place for all of us.

Have you been afraid to dream big in your family? Because maybe you’ll fail – or maybe you’ll succeed? Your kids are watching. Choose to dream and choose to SHARE your dreams with them and others. And once the whole family gets aligned – that’s where the magic happens. Take a chance, get involved, but most of all – can you have some fun??

Share your story or thoughts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn. You can also email me at DJ@Dare2Dad.com.