The world of life and business coaching and mentoring is one filled full of envisioning, setting goals, moving forward, growing, changing, and fulfilling dreams.

Helping clients find their vision, their life purpose and their direction is one of the most rewarding, satisfying parts of my job. Then along comes the part of partnering with clients along the journey of actually stepping into their vision.

There comes a time in everyone’s journey, myself included, when important but very difficult decisions need to be made. It’s at these times you begin to realize the enormity of the cost of your dream. Living out your dream, involves making sacrifices.  At the beginning though it can be a bit of a shock to the system!

I’ve seen it many times, actually stepping into your dream can feel much much harder than you ever imagined!

Here are some of the common areas of difficulty with some tips to help keep you on track towards success:-

Too much work

At some point when you have built a momentum, the sheer enormity of work involved in taking your dream forward, can feel impossible, overwhelming and simply wrong.

Birthing something new creates a lot of work and a steep learning curve. Sometimes the problem is you have to manage old commitments alongside birthing something new. Managing the transition from old to new is best done by simply starting to say ‘no’ to commitments that do not serve you in this new season. That would be a ‘no’ to either older commitments or new ones that take your focus away from the achieving the vision. It’s a healthy change to pass some of these commitments on to aspiring leaders, following in your footsteps. You will never move to the next level without leaving behind some of the things you used to do. So clear the decks! Make room. With regards to how much work is too much work, my test is I need to have just enough on my plate to still feel like it’s fun. If it’s too much and it’s not fun anymore, quite frankly what is the point? Don’t forget we are all at choice. So handing over some projects or archiving them for a while is a good plan. They could always come out at a later date. Give your current dream the time and space it deserves. Give it the best of you and your creativity to fulfill it. Saying ‘no’ to other commitments is a sacrifice you need to live your dream

Moving back into incompetency.

Chances are to do something new, you will need to re-train and learn new skills. For example, if you are setting up an organization; you may need to learn about setting up and managing an organization. This will involve creating websites, networking, marketing, bookkeeping, creating strategic plans. Perhaps try and take on one new skill at a time, so you don’t feel too overwhelmed. In the meantime ‘borrow’ other people’s skills that can help you with what you don’t know. Experts are very quick at doing what they know, so it’s worth paying them to help you. The chances are they will take less time than you think. Getting friends to do you favours can work but doesn’t always work out well. Remember, you don’t want the blind leading the blind. The sacrifice you are making here is turning away from operating in a realm you are familiar with using skills you are familiar with, to take on what is new and unknown. You can end up feeling incompetent because everything is new and untried. Stick with it, your dream is worth it. You will be so pleased you know what you know when you’ve learnt it all. You won’t be the newbie for long.

Going backwards before your can go forwards

Changing your life and living your dream is not easy. You may well have to earn less for a time, live less comfortably, move areas, move away from some good friends. You may have to lose a respectable position which you have built up for some years. You may have to start at the bottom rung of the ladder again. When people ask you what you do, it may feel weird for a time. You may lose privileges you had being a part of a particular organization. As long as you have a plan to make it work whatever you are sacrificing will be worth it in the end. Not many people regret trying, most regret never taking that risk.

It is at the time of experiencing sacrifices like these and others that you realize whether your dream is worth it or not. Good coaching can help you find a vision and a dream that you are passionate about. Something that you feel is worth literally dying for. Perhaps, like many people living out their passion, when you do this , you often won’t even notice the sacrifices you are making.