Don’t let your big, bold and audacious dream for your life suffocate your goals.

Your dream is the type of stuff you would put on your vision board. It represents wants, not needs. Your dream is a no-holds-barred picture of the kind of life you want to live. Dreams aren’t predicated on reality. You don’t need plans in place to back up a dream. Dreams are fun. Dream are also necessary.

Without a dream, motivation can wane. The purpose of near-term tasks and goals fizzle out without something big looming out on the horizon to pull us into the future. Successful people and businesses both know this truth.

As I’m writing this blog post, in early January 2017, we are also faced with a shocking fact. The vast majority of you, and I mean YOU, will fail in achieving your New Years Resolutions. Take heart, as you will have plenty of company. 90.8% of people fail to realize their resolutions.

That’s insane! Only 9.2% of people achieve the goals they put into place for the new year.

Does this mean the resolutions were meaningless? Does this mean that most people lack the resources and willpower to achieve their goals?

No, it does not!

What it means is that the resolutions are missing something.

Does this sound like you?

• I get frustrated towards the end of the year and know I need to make a change.
• I avoid changing my bad habits until the new year, so I can “enjoy” the Holidays.
• I commit to not one, but several huge goals for the New Year.
• I choose big goals that need massive action and building of habits that I have yet ever to stick to in my life.
• I set bold and insane deadlines for myself. 6-pack abs in 60 days! Double my business in 3 months!
• I go for it alone and don’t enlist a professional coach or trainer to support me.

It’s a recipe for disaster!

Dreaming is important. Yet, when setting to achieve any resolution (or goal) we need to acknowledge the #1 thing that gets in the way of reaching a goal.

It isn’t time. It isn’t money. Those are the two most voiced “excuses” people use for not doing things. But, the real reason people don’t achieve their goals is this: they don’t get started in the first place.

For the few that do, they rely on willpower to propel them towards their dream. The problem is that willpower is a finite resource. No wonder the gyms and yoga studios are packed in January and empty in March!

The good news is that almost every goal has related actions that can be taken for free and need minimal time.

• Want to get healthy? Walk to the grocery store instead of driving today.
• Want to grow your business? Email your last successful client and ask if they wouldn’t mind telling their friends about you.
• Want to be an early riser? Go to bed 20 minutes earlier tonight and see what that does to your morning schedule.

What gets in the way of achieving your dream, is that it is so daunting that you don’t know how to get started. You think you need the right equipment, skills, knowledge, plan or whatever else you believe that you need. You forget that doing something is better than nothing.

Our dreams can loom soo large over our heads that we shrink away from them instead of leaning into them. We forget to celebrate every pound we loose, and instead dwell on the 20 pounds remaining to be lost!

Don’t let your dreams crush your goals. Instead, commit to thinking SMALL and TACTICAL this year. Be a master executioner. Focus on what you can do in the minute, hour and day ahead to make progress. Don’t worry so much about your long term dream.

It’s better to think small and achieve something than to think big and never get started in the first place (or fizzle out in a month or so). Do you agree?

Ask yourself: What can I do right now to make progress towards my goal? Have something in mind? Great! Now it’s time to get to it!

I wish you well in the year ahead and hope that you (and I) are both among the 9% that are successful in achieving our resolutions. Who knows, perhaps through our actions we will aspire the other 91% to stay committed and achieve more than they thought possible!