Do You Dream?

I do.

In fact every night before I hit the sack that's when I dream. Yes, I dream before I sleep. Now how's that possible? To dream even before I go into REM?

Well, I dream about my desired outcomes. My goals and visions in my three dimensional roles; personal, people, and professional.

These days my dreams are filled with achieving these goals with the various people in my lives. My wife, my friends, associates, schools we are working with, and schools we will be working with.

In fact, you might like to know that one of my dreams are fast becoming fulfilled way in advance.

Now, of course you've heard about the merits of having your goals written down and have them staring at you (or is it the other way round?) everyday before you sleep and each morning when you awake.

Those of you who have watched "The Secret" would remember the "vision board". For the uninitiated, it is essentially a board (I used the 3M sticky board) where you'd put up pictures of what you want or wish for and stare at it day and night. You've got to also envisage how you would enjoy them; meaning imagine you've already achieved it and how you would feel about it.

Now, there's several reasons for this. Principally, it evokes certain feel-good emotions which will fire up in your brain. Each time you do that, it intensify that feel good emotions. Only condition is, you've gotta do it consistently.

Thinking behind this is, we are all emotional driven beings. Hence, after a period of doing this consistently, you would be driven to take the necessary actions to work towards the goal, hence fulfilling that need for the positive emotions.

You see, emotions come before actions. That's why they say sales is 100% emotions. Only when you feel good about something will you take action.

So how do we apply this in an organizational context?

First, write down all your goals and have them put up on a board that is visible to all. Yes, you can make it colourful and pretty but essentially it must make people want to look at it.

Second, ask your team to talk about these goals. How they would feel if these goals are met (emotions). What it means to them (purpose). Then align the emotions to the purposes. Because unless it really means to something to them, they will not be motivated to do something towards the achievements of those goals.

Third, ask the people what they can do to work towards these goals (behaviors). Have them brainstorm and discuss how they can contribute towards these goals (checking for alignment to their purposes).

Fourth, pre-schedule regular meetings to share about their progress (reflect); celebrate the successes and also identify what else can be done to help them work towards these goals (clear the way for them by giving them the support they need).

I've found this to be extremely useful. So, go on and start dreaming.

Sweet dreams, my friends.

Respectfully yours,
Melvyn Tan
(Sent from my Blackberry Bold)