Building a Dream? Get Tenacious My Friend

Let me ask you something. Do you see your dream as a hobby, or do you see it as something worth fighting for? I hope your dream is the kind you feel led to fight for because those kinds of dreams can change your life (and the life of others)! Yet when we go after our God-sized dream, the enemy will always rise up in opposition and attempt to discourage us. That’s when we have to get tenacious!

Amelia Earhart once said: “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”

I have to agree with Ms. Earhart, but also recognize that the level of our tenacity may need to be pretty high some days. Today, let’s chat about some ways we can fight for our dream.

As we attempt to inch closer and closer to realizing our dream, we need to …

Understand that if we quit, it will say more about us than about our dream. Anyone who tells you they haven’t considered quitting about a half dozen times when building their dream is not being honest. There are days when it just gets hard. Believe me, the temptation to quit has crossed the mind of every world changer. But those who are sold out for their dream, take a deep breath, step back for a minute, and then get back in the chase.

The Bible says:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. James 1:2-4 NLT

Even though every day won’t flow the way we want, it is just a test. Daughter of God, you are stronger than you think. “Never give up, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” Harriet Beecher Stowe

Understand our words matter. This one is so important. Many times, we worry about the words of others when we are our own worst enemy. Take inventory today. What are you saying about your dream and its chances of success? If we are speaking negatively about our dream, we can’t expect others to speak positively concerning it. Learn to speak to your dream. Filling the atmosphere with positive words will carry you toward your dream, but allowing frustration, disappointment, and failure to rule the day only impedes progress.

I often think of King David when I get down and out. I think about how he encouraged himself through some of the darkest periods of his life (1 Samuel 30:6). “Speak your dreams not your doubts, speak your faith not your fears; what you give voice to you give power to in your life!” G.T. Froese

World changer, there will be days you just have to encourage yourself and command your dream to follow suit.

Change the way we think. Our words are usually a product of our thinking. The Bible is clear on this one: “For it is out of the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45 ESV). What thoughts are you allowing to take up space in your mind? Today, it’s time to take some advice from Paul: “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV).

When we entertain negative thoughts, Joyce Meyer terms this “stinking thinking.” If you struggle with negative thoughts about yourself or your dream, I highly recommend her book, Battlefield of the Mind: Winning the Battle in your Mind.

“Success in every aspect of life begins with a thought; so does failure. If you think you cannot do or attain something, chances are you will not be able to. Your mind has that much influence over your life.” Joyce Meyer

 I also highly recommend Steven Furtick’s book, Crash the Chatterbox: Hearing God’s Voice Above All Others.

“Sometimes the danger of missing out is greater than the risk that comes with stepping out.” Steven Furtick

John Maxwell reminds us: “Successful people think differently than unsuccessful people.” Friend, to be tenacious in chasing  your dream, learn to make your thoughts work for you!

Realize that there will never be a right time to move forward. Nike capitalized on the statement: “Just do it.” There is a lot of wisdom in that simple short quote. If you are waiting for all the stars to line up just right and for everything to be perfect before you start chasing your dream, you’re going to be waiting a long time. Life isn’t going to roll over for us and just cooperate. It hasn’t happened in the entire history of time and its not going to happen now. If it did, we wouldn’t need faith!

Trust in God and not the circumstances and get moving on your dream. Step by step, little by little, things will start shifting around in your favor, but not until you take that first step!

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” Martin Luther King, Jr.

World changers can’t hesitate to step forward. There is just too much riding on their dreams.

Realize resource availability will cease the moment we stop. If we put the brakes on our dreams, others will too. Most of the resources we need to make the dream move forward is in the hands of others. Taking our foot off the gas only slows down the progress of realizing our dream or worse yet, stalls it.

“Effort only releases its reward after a person refuses to quit.” W. Clement Stone

If we are diligently working on our dream, it attracts the people we need at just the right time. However, backing off of our dream signals that our dream is not a high priority or that we’re really not committed to going the distance. Either way, we begin to chase away the people and resources that we need. And overcoming that gap once we’ve created it is often very difficult.

Be tenacious world changer, keep the momentum going and don’t miss out on partnerships that could catapult your dream forward!

Practice the rule of five (or four or three). I can’t express the importance of consistency enough. Consistent steps toward your dream are the only way you’ll get there. So, every day (or week), do at least three to five things that move the dream forward and do it consistently!

Now, if you’re a busy wife, mother, caregiver, or whatever hat you wear on the day-to-day, I get the tendency to feel like there is never enough time to work on your dream. But can I say something friend to friend? Wearing all those hats probably isn’t really what is holding you back from chasing your dream. They may slow you down, but they are not holding you up. You are!

Right now, as I write this post to you, I’ve come out of a seven year stretch of being a caregiver, and before that I was a wife and a mom as well as holding down a part-time job. Today, I’m still a wife, mom, and part-time worker, but I am also a full-time grad school student who is building a ministry –this ministry! If I had not been taking consistent steps toward my dream all these years and let the busyness of life discourage me, we wouldn’t be talking right now. And I’m really excited that we are!

Consistency is tenacity’s best friend. “When positive attitudes meet faith, courage, consistency and perseverance, miracles tend to happen.” Edmond Mbiaka

You can do this world changer, just consistently put one foot in front of the other as often as you can. You determine the schedule, and you are allowed to adjust it when needed. I promise, if you get consistent, God will step in and do the rest!

Remember there is always one more possibility. Ever had that feeling like you are running into a brick wall or a roadblock? Yeah, it comes with the territory. World changers look at brick walls and roadblocks a little differently.

“The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.” Randy Pausch

“Barriers are not roadblocks, they are detours.” Steven C. Owens

When we come up against a brick wall or a roadblock, it’s time to re-strategize what we are doing –not give up! Remember that dream team we talked about in Ready to Build a Dream Team? This is when a team will come in handy. And, if you don’t have a dream team, you should have certain people that you can bounce ideas off of. Sometimes we just need to get outside of our own head to see the solution.

No this isn’t the time to quit, it’s time to get fiercely tenacious. “Dwell in possibility.” Emily Dickinson

Well, world changer, are you feeling a little tenacious? I hope so. The more you allow tenacity to grow the better it will serve you and your dream!