Ronald Dahl was a British novelist who wrote stories screenplays and he was also fighter pilot. You might be familiar with some of his books turned into movies such as Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the scary James and the Giant Peach, and Witches. He passed away in November 1990.
But this blog post is about exploring something very interesting that he said.
He said
“if you are interested in something no matter what it is.. go at it full speed. Embrace it with both Arms, hug it love it and above all be passionate about it. Lukewarm is no good.”
Let’s explore that. Do you think he was just saying to us that if we had no idea, no plan, just do it it ‘… -just go off and do it. …
I think maybe that’s not exactly what he meant.
I think that he did mean in order to carry through with an idea through all the disappointments, and ups and downs that we could encounter along the way,
we’ve got to be totally committed.
We’ve got to be so committed that we bounce back from any hardship. We bounce back from any feeling of ‘I don’t want to do this today’.
Our desire, our ‘why’ is great enough to get us off that sofa and to our desk or work place to work on making our dream a reality.
It’s very interesting that when we are lukewarm or lackadaisical about a goal, it so easy to give up.
And it’s also a bit hard to get some support when we’re very lukewarm about our goal because enthusiasm and passion are what incite others to follow us or just help us out. Our enthusiasm helps others to see our dream and sometimes it convinces them to join in the endeavour.
To help us however they can … be that referring us to a book that will help us ..introducing us to someone who might be able to help us move along to the next step…or even pitching in and giving physical help when needed to reach our goal . It’s our enthusiasm, it’s our full speed ahead attitude that convinces others to help us.
And, that attracts to us the help and resources we need.
That gives us the strength to keep going when the Going Gets Tough.
And I believe that at the desire to serve others, the desire to offer assistance, to lift others, to show them how to do do something that will improve their lives in some way is is a powerful motivating force to keep us moving full speed ahead.
Sometimes if our ‘why’ is just solely to benefit ourselves, it’s easy to give ourselves a break. And give up.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a rest but that’s not the same as giving up entirely.
Sometimes if our ‘why’ is just about me, it’s easy to say: no one’s being hurt if I stop. I’m tired.
But if you’ve got something to offer, a dream to serve others, a service to bring to the world, that becomes your reason to keep moving. You’ve got something to give and you’ve got to give it. Nothing can stop you. Slow us down maybe…
Ronald mentions loving your dream,embracing it.
How do we do that? I think there are several tools that will help us to embrace our desire to love it, to be it.
Three things come to mind vision boards, journalling, and networking or master minding.
With the Vision board, we have pictures of what we want to come into our lives …pictures and words, and we look at this everyday.
This could be a big board that we put on a wall somewhere or it could be something on our phone.
For instance my vision board is on my phone. It’s a collection of photographs & a collection of sayings or words, and then I play it as a slideshow, and I look at it it almost every day.
It is just a matter of taste. You could cut out pictures and put it on a board on your wall, but the phone is just more convenient for me.
The next idea is is journalling. Again this is something that you could either have a physical book and write down your thoughts which is kind of connecting your hand to your mind to your emotions as you journal, or or you can do it on your phone on an app or in a notebook.
Just write down your feelings, write down your dreams, write down what you think might be stopping you , write down what you think would help you, write down how you think you could overcome those things that you feel are stopping you. Write down your mission statement, your why.
Journalling can help us to clarify our thoughts so we don’t just have blind passion for a goal, rather we have intelligent focused passion that will take us in the right direction ,and keep us on track when we start to wander off the path. It’s totally ok to be passionate and still to take a break, when we have gone on too much. Our passion will help us to start again after we have rested and refreshed ourselves.
The third idea that I have to help us to keep that passion, Enthusiasm ,love, hugging the dream to our hearts – is linking with people who support our goal, who are of a similar mindset so that we support each other.
We will often find that we cannot achieve this goal by ourselves, we might need people who have complementary skills or complementary knowledge, or just who can help us keep our spirits up as we do the same for them.
Or someone of a complementary mindset whom we can bounce things off of , exchange ideas & plans.
This has to be someone whom we trust, and know has our best interests at heart and can help us, as we help them be accountable to the actions we need to take, to achieve a dream.
Sometimes in might be hard to find this kind of a person and we might have to go alone for a good long while, but we can do it. Because if we don’t have this person in our lives, that’s what books and podcasts and motivational speakers are for … to keep the fire burning.
So that in my mind is the magic trio to keep our goals hot and keep running at full speed: vision boards or visualisation, journalling, and being as best we can with like-minded people who support and encourage us.
How about you? What do you do to keep yourself in the groove. To keep going on a goal when things are going slow or not moving at all, or you begin to doubt yourself and wonder what you are doing trying to accomplish this task.
How do you pull yourself back ? How do you get out of lukewarm mode and turn the heat and passion back up?
Let’s share let’s help each other. Feel free to leave a comment or visit us on Twitter @stefsvoice. Or visit our Facebook group positive affirmations and audio stories.
Coffee fuels us up…donations keep us going. 😊 Pop over to ko-fi if you’d like to financially support our work. Thanks!
Happy Thoughts - A Positive Affirmations Podcast 