What to do when dreams are slow in coming
When dreams are slow in coming, it’s heartbreaking. It’s easy to lose faith. You’ll ask yourself fifteen times whether or not you should give up. You start perusing articles online that tell you when to let go of something, give it up for lost.
My favorite scene in the movie Moneyball is when Billy Bean (Brad Pitt’s character) and Ron Washington go over to Scott Hatteberg’s house to ask him to play first base for the Oakland A’s. (I tried to find the scene on YouTube, but it didn’t turn up).
Hatteberg was a catcher who thought he was finished in baseball after nerve damage to his arm that kept him from catching. But Bean saw something different: this guy could play first base.What always makes me cry is the look on Hatteberg’s face (or the actor who portrays him, of course) after Bean and Washington have left and he’s dumbfounded, new contract in hand, looking at his wife.
He thought he was done, finished, over, finito. And now the whole entire world has just opened up for him to do what he loves.
Most times in life, no one is going to walk up to us with a contract in hand, to turn things around for us--but this is something you can orchestrate.
When your dreams are slow in coming, it’s time to create a new “contract” so to speak--to do something different.
In 2010, I was terrified when it came to running a successful business. I’d really put myself full steam ahead on developing my business and things just weren’t moving. I was trying to decide whether or not I should give up. Finally, I decided: I didn’t like the idea that I would walk away from doing this without having tried every single thing that I possibly could, to make it work.
The one thing I hadn’t tried? Hiring Danielle LaPorte, who was doing one on one consulting sessions at that time, for business advice. I was afraid to invest the money ($500 at the time) because I didn’t have a lot of money. I didn’t want to pay for anything that wouldn’t have a guaranteed return on investment. Those of you who have read The Coaching Blueprint know the story of how I had been badly burned by investing in someone for such a session, early on in my practice.
Also, I’d spent a few years in entrepreneurial “DIY” mode. If I could do it myself (i.e., read articles and subscribe to newsletters to learn about business) then why pay someone else to teach me about business?
Now I was armed with this one idea, though: I knew I was close to walking away, but I didn’t want to do that without saying that I knew I had absolutely tried every single thing that I could think of.
Danielle’s expertise (and her support and encouragement) were one of the first business revolutions that I experienced. I’ve thanked her before, but words never do justice. Within a month of that session, business had doubled. Within a few more months, coaches were writing in to me asking me for business help. By the end of 2011, things had turned around so massively that I had written The Coaching Blueprint .
She wasn’t my “contract,” though, walking into my life to make things better.
I was the creator of my own contract. I created my new contract the moment I decided that if I wanted a different result, then something different had to be done. I made good on that contract when I started implementing Danielle's suggestions within 24 hours of our call, taking immediate action.
When dreams are slow in coming, consider what you’ve resisted doing. For so many people, the thing they resist the most is admitting that they’re a little bit exhausted by their dreams and taking a necessary break (I’ve been there, too). For others, they know that there’s an investment that they’ve needed to make, but have been hesitating to make. For still others, it really all boils down to asking for help.
Try something you haven’t tried before, and look out for the contracts that are about to walk into your life--and if they aren’t immediately visible on the horizon, start to create your own.