Going for your dreams can be an incredible, exhilarating, sometimes scary, task. Community member Parker Bradley sat down to share with us his journey and give you 10 applicable tips on how you can take action and go for your dreams now.

Going for it: By Parker Bradley: 

Hi there, folks. Just another dreamer here: currently immersed in the process of realizing and pursuing a dream, with passion at the wheel, and fear trailing not too far behind. I am not another success story—yet. I am in the initial stages of realizing a dream, combing through the demands of life, searching for the time and energy to dedicate to pursuing a passion that envelops me. If you are reading this, I imagine you have a dream you wish to see through as well, and a passion that keeps you up at night, wakes you up in the morning, and manages to monopolize your thoughts as you live each day. Good for you! I’m right there with you. How wonderful it is! You have something unique to you that you would like to create and share with the world; that is an incredible feat. But as I have personally realized, it is quite the strenuous road. It’s a bit like driving down a beat up back road full of surprises: potholes, animal crossings , and plenty of, “slow down” signs. To put it simply, it’s rough; but once you gain the proper motivation and mindset, you find that you will be able to manage your way through.

I had spent months formulating and building the structure of my dream in my mind, and within the past few months, have taken those thoughts and ideas, and attempted to funnel them into existence. That is where I am now: the building process of a dream that has only previously existed in my mind. Here I am actually taking said dream and bringing it into the world to share with others. What a process it has been, and will be; one that requires consistent attention and motivation, as I teach myself how.  I know I am not alone; as there are many others out there who wish to do the same. Hence, why I am writing this. I want to share with you some tips and ideas that have helped me along this arduous process. Support and inspiration from others who have been through and are currently going through a similar adventure is vital in the art of creating. We can build off of the stories, struggles, and successes of others to motivate and teach each other how to progress forward along our journey to attain our ultimate goal: to create the life we want to live.

Let me start by saying this: we are all creative, and we all have the ability to do something brilliant with our lives, and/or give something unique and wonderful to this world. Creativity and ideas are not unique to a certain breed of human; it is something that is ingrained in all of us, just waiting to be acknowledged and brought to the surface. But this takes work. Everyone has their dream—their vision of an ideal life—but it does not come easy. The process is stocked full with obstacles and demands that try to pull us from our passion and distract our inspiration. Now it is up to us, the individual, to use our time wisely and channel consistent motivation in order to stay afloat along this journey. It is easy to become discouraged, and it is easy to become lazy, but we must not let ourselves get comfortable—the life we desire depends on it. We are accountable for our future, and we have the capacity to live the meaningful life we want. Now how do we direct that capacity into productive action?

Maybe this can help:

1. Tell yourself that you will not let your thoughts go unnoticed.

We are all daydreamers, and when we have that idea that we wish to bring into existence, it steals our sleep and consumes our time throughout each waking hour. We cannot ignore these thoughts! Let them in, interact with them, and let them reside in the front of your brain so you can see them clearly. Write them down, draw them out, and let the inspiration start flowing. Take the time to drive those thoughts through the pencil onto something permanent. It’s motivating to see your thoughts on paper anyway. That being said:

2. Keep a Journal!

The demands of life may currently be taking up your time, but if you have an idea for your dream, Write it down! We may not have time to crack this idea open at this very moment—we may be working, or waiting in line at the grocery store, or trying to sleep—so write it down and expand on it later when you have made the time in the day. That night or the next day, open your journal and expand on the idea, now that you have made the time.

I personally have a journal with me just about everywhere I go, and when I don’t, I make sure to keep notes on my phone. Inspiration can show up at any time, so come prepared. Don’t tell yourself that you will remember it later, because often times, you don’t. Write that thing down! There is nothing more frustrating than struggling to remember that great idea you had earlier, and ultimately losing it. Take the time to write it out: your future self will thank you.

3. Don’t distract yourself!

Now this is a big one. With how accessible social media is now, and the endless content that it provides, capable of stealing hours of our day, it is so easy to distract ourselves from our thoughts, which are imperative to the process of realizing a dream. It is difficult to interact with an idea or thought when we are scrolling through our social media feeds, consistently being presented with something that is yes, stimulating, but more importantly, distracting. I feel like I can speak for most of us when I say that I’ve caught myself mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, and finally snapping out of it, realizing that I don’t remember anything from all that content I just absorbed. Now that is just 30 minutes of precious time wasted that could have been utilized for brainstorming or writing.

Don’t get me wrong, social media has its perks, and I do enjoy it, but when it becomes a time-filler, we have a problem. I used to think it was so difficult to find time to work towards a dream, but when I put the phone down, I found more and more time in my day. Maybe when you woke up and drank your coffee, you could have broke out that journal and interacted with some of your ideas. I find that this time spent in the morning motivates me early on in my day. It’s a good start when paired with a good cup of coffee! Now, have you ever been say, writing or drawing, or doing something you consider work towards your dream, and you hit a block? You can’t think of how to start the next sentence, or what to add, and you quickly pick up your phone? Me too. This is an important time for our brains to calculate our next move, to brainstorm. And we lose that by grabbing the phone! Let your brain work past the block; don’t distract it!

Of course there are plenty of ways to distract yourself, and at times, it is okay. We don’t have to be on our game and productive every second of every day. It is when our distractions become time-fillers; that is when we need to reconnect with our goals. We must be diligent to use our free time to keep our momentum going in the tedious process of creating the life we dream of.

4. Keep your phone close and your coffee closer.

  It’s inevitable: our phones will always be near us when we are doing our work. Whether on the table, or in our pocket, it will be there, waiting to be picked up, ready to distract us. Let’s see if you can relate to this situation: Say you hit a mental block when working on your idea; whether it be writing, drawing, etc. You take your hands off the keyboard, or put down the pencil, and what do you do? You reach for the phone, Like some of us, myself included, I get stuck on it, and wind up wasting valuable minutes scrolling through other people’s lives on some sort of social media. This goes back to topic of distraction. So here is my point: try putting something in between your work station and your phone. This may sound odd, but give yourself something else to grab. Put that cup of coffee in between you and your phone, and make it a point to grab it instead of your phone when you pause from your work. Or even better, keep that journal full of your ideas and thoughts next to you. If you find your creative mind stuck, grab your journal and read through some pages! What better way to get back to meaningful work than to skip through some of the content that inspired the work you are doing. Much more productive than seeing who checked in where with who on Facebook, right? Make this a habit: reach for something more productive than your phone in times of creative struggle. Pause, brainstorm, and get back to it.

5. Try Not to Force your Work:

Of course, when you have your dream identified, and your passion in your scope, put in the work, but never force it. Get yourself inspired, then pick up the pencil. Forced work is not your truest work. Do no force yourself to create; remind yourself why you are doing this work.

Example: I attempted to write my mission and vision statement for my company when I forced myself to sit down and write it. Yep, I got some words down. then left them for a few days. When I returned to them on a day where I was feeling inspired and ready to work, I deleted everything I had wrote and started completely over. There was no passion in my forced words; but when inspired, my passion was ingrained in the them, and you could feel it.

When you feel the desire or inspiration to work, work! Use that energy and motivation to create content that reflects your passion. These are the times when our work is in its purest form; do not waste it. We want to create something that changes our lives and/or the lives of others; it is important that we face it with all our heart and mind by channeling our energy and inspiration in a productive direction. Remember, the destination is much more satisfying (and successful) when you are present and aware during the journey, focusing on each step, acknowledging and appreciating the difficulty of the process. Meaningful lives are not easily achieved, but ever so satisfying when we acknowledge how hard we worked and the difficulties we overcame. So get inspired, stay focused, and go get it.

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Last month, Nat Woods & Dan Smith, founders of Clean Coast Collective, spoke at our 2nd annual #RadLivin Festival in Sydney.  In case you weren’t able to make it on over to down unda, we spoke with Nat & Dan to get all of the details on how they got to where they are and how you can go for your dreams now too.

Once learning about the impact of plastics and pollution on our oceans and beaches, Nat and Dan took it upon themselves to  clean up beaches around Australia. Their journey led them to create Clean Coast Collective – a not-for-profit lifestyle brand shifting consumer behaviour away from disposable plastics.

From launching their idea through ING Direct Dreamstarter, to starting a rad lifestyle brand that gives back, Nat & Dan will teach you how they turned this epic idea into a reality.

Meet Nat and Dan…

Remember the quirky, fun interview we did with the Co- Founder of Late Shake, Taylor London? Late Shake is a pop-up, late-night milkshake spot delivering high-quality, tasty shakes in Portland, Oregon. We checked in on Taylor about a year later to see what he’s up to and asked if he could give us insight into passion, purpose and creating a business out of something you simply love. For him, that’s milkshakes.

Words from Taylor London:

In 1960, one of my favorite authors, John Steinbeck, decided to drive around the U.S. in a car with his poodle, Charlie. He had a truck built specifically for the trip, enabling him to live out of it while driving around and talking to people, all in the name of getting to better know a country he had been writing about for decades. He was 58, his heart was failing, and he was probably suffering from a mild form of depression. When other writers his age were living out the twilight of their careers, he decided to jump in a camper and make for the west coast.

In 2015, my friend and I decided to start a seasonal milkshake pop up out of a gorgeous coffee shop in SE Portland, Oregon. We also decided to keep our day jobs, which meant we worked seven days a week for a couple months straight in an effort to successfully launch our idea while not losing our health insurance and the respect of our parents. I had just turned 26, was moderately healthy (though I hated running, still do), and by my own admission a bit stuck as to what I ought to do with myself. Notably, I did not have a poodle, though Grahm owned a cat named Janet.

At that point in his storied career, Steinbeck had lots of money and plenty of spare time on his hands to take such a trip, though I’m not bringing this up to suggest it was at all easy to do. Quite the opposite. Creating a business without much to fall back on is an admirable accomplishment, though attempting something new when already accustomed to success takes some guts. Steinbeck had his national reputation on the line. Grahm and I, we didn’t have much to lose because we didn’t (and still don’t) have much money or prestige. Still, industrial milkshake mixers cost a lot, and I couldn’t shake the sense that, if things didn’t go well, I might never be able to work up the confidence to try something new.

Now, Steinbeck died a few years later, but he completed his odd little journey and even got a novel out of the whole experience. I am roughly a year and a half removed from starting Late Shake with Grahm, and this thing is still going, remarkably. Now, I’m loathe to chalk up the success of a small shake shop to the cliche of “hard work and a little luck” (these are givens in any venture worth undertaking) because, sad as it is, lots of people work hard and miss what they aim for. Starting a project and putting hours upon hours into it does not guarantee success, as this world (and the food industry, especially) has shown. We all know life can be unduly harsh and punish smart, motivated people while rewarding those who err on the side of caution.

If you are an infant entrepreneur, bite off what you can chew. Starting a business is difficult enough without making it harder to succeed. Late Shake started with three menu items versus five, for instance; we purposely focused on doing one thing really well and tackling new ventures, like boozy shakes, only after we perfected our process. Shed the unnecessary weight before setting off.

I make the Steinbeck analogy not to equate the success of Late Shake with the brilliant author’s foray across the country, but to stress how the root desire is similar: love of craft and underlying purpose is essential to the viability of starting something new. My peculiar love of milkshakes and desire to provide a community space for my neighborhood is what enables me to work so damn hard. Steinbeck found joy in his gift of manipulating plain speech into something great, and I suspect he loved his country quite fiercely as well, because why else did he drive across it?

If one does not love the people they set out to serve, the cause will inevitably fade into dullness; resentment settles in.

Perhaps I will one day abandon this weird, wonderful project—as satisfying as it is, I know there is more to life than indulging in one’s own desires and pursuits—but that won’t happen anytime soon. I’ve learned more about myself in the past 18 or so months than if I had not decided to start Late Shake, of that I am confident. Somehow, I’ve managed to accomplish this while working a retail job (I work an Apple Store) and beginning a relationship with a girl who I’ll marry in the fall. Life is wonderfully strange. Then again, so is driving across the country at 58 with a poodle:

Sometimes, we have to do something strange to get things in motion.

Follow his journey with Late Shake over on Instagram. x