Dreams – we all have them. Sometimes they are big, often they can be relatively small. Dreaming is important for our happiness and positivity, but turning this into a reality can seem like a massive barrier. Pursuing a dream can bring true contentment to our lives.

I find the easiest way to turn a dream into a goal is to first write it down. Simply write down what the headline goal is. My example was I wanted to launch a wellbeing website to maximise the work I do on wellbeing and learn new skills.

It went something like this:

“In 2020 I want to launch a wellbeing website – to find a permanent home for my blogs and my wellbeing journey”

That’s it, it was written down. A visual record of something I wanted to achieve in my personal life. But just looking at that is quite a big tasks to achieve. That in itself could be quite daunting.

The next stage in the process was to start to break this goal down. I spent more time with my goal, I set myself a few milestones I thought I would need to achieve this. So lets go back to the website goal, for me it went something like this

• Write down ideas for what the website would contain and try to achieve
• Research what others were doing
• Who is my audience?
• Web design – how can I manage this
• content management – easy way to manage operation of the site
• Branding – just what is this site going to be called?

They were my main steps. I felt more confident breaking my goal down – I’d got a list of manageable outcomes to help me achieve my goal. I deliberately did not set a deadline, I decided to launch the site as soon as and when it was ready.

I felt I needed to achieve something quickly, so I felt I had begun to properly pursue my dream. I took one small step towards this – I listed the ideas for the website. This small activity influenced every step I took.

I am lucky through my day job that I have learned alot about product management and development. I’m no expert but those skills really did help me get this website launched. Through the summer of 2020 I spent time learning basic web design and researching cost effective content management. By late September 2020 I had a prototype website called Better Days Wellbeing hosted on the word press platform. I drafted in a few friends to help test the site. We jointly agreed it was in a position to go live.

The website launched on 30 October 2020, after over six months of working towards my goal (with the help of some friends too). I had lots of ideas for the site, but as I developed my plans it did not make sense to launch all content at once. The version of the site that went live was a basic design as a home for my blog and a few articles – this was the minimum go live product.

As time passed I added more content to the site, it has become the home to links, videos and original content. I have introduced a better layout too.

This was all made possible from writing out my goal and breaking it down. So many good ideas I’ve had have only ever been a headline thought, and then have never come to anything. Writing my dreams down as goals has made it possible to actually achieve things I want to in life.

So, if you are still reading this, you are clearly interested in your dreams. Gift yourself some time, grab a pen or a word processor and write it down. What are your dreams? Dream out loud and achieve them.