The cycle of success - realizing your dreams (part two)

I will elaborate on the second half of the creative spiral and the associated creation process in this text. These six steps – from expressing to persevering – focus more on the practical implementation of your creation process. As you go through these six steps, you'll learn how to turn your thoughts into reality and how to make your wish come true successfully. I strongly recommend that you start with the first part of the creation process, which you can find here. It is essential to go through the entire process in the correct order to take all the crucial steps at the right time.

Express

The essence of voicing is to share your wish with as many others as possible. If you do not yet believe in your ability to make the wish a reality and you choose to share that wish with others, the reaction from below will be overwhelmingly negative. A person who doesn't believe in what he wants formulates his plans to go ahead in a way that invites rejection.

Enthusiasm and conviction ensure that others become convinced as well. Doubting your wishes will cause others to question as well. On the one hand, you want the wish to come across strongly. On the other, you want to leave room for suggestions and criticism. Having a strong wish does not mean that you should avoid all criticism. You want to receive feedback and tips to help you realize your plans.

A second – at least equally important – reason you want to share plans with others is to get supporters for your wish. That is important because most projects cannot be realized by one person. It would help if you had a support network of people you can turn to for the things you can't do yourself and emotional support during your growth process.

Investigate

In believing, we looked only at what feels comfortable and collected thoughts that contribute to realizing the wish. We did not take into account the feasibility of plans. We do that when investigating.

You have probably developed solid ideas, and your plans have already developed through the advice and support of others. In research, you look further at expertise, information about feasibility, and the experiences of people who have done something similar. You, therefore, investigate how and with whom your wish can become a reality. Only when you have done enough research can you make feasible plans.

Think, for example, of obtaining information about coaches or therapists who can support you in the right way with what you think you need or talking to a friend who is more advanced in their personal development.

Some things are easier to investigate than others. If you are researching something that someone else has done for you, you can often quickly adopt that other person's solution. When questioned, you'll also quickly learn where the other person went wrong and how to make sure you don't make the same mistakes.

Plan

Planning your personal growth or solving your problems is a complex process, if not impossible. You can determine for yourself that you should have solved all your issues within a week or that you can be happy again after a few sessions with a coach. Of course, this isn't realistic, no matter how much you'd like it to be. Planning is an essential part of the creation process; that's why I described it in this text.

Even if you have trouble setting deadlines for yourself and planning exactly when you'll be ready for the next step, you can still look at when you would like to start and set goals for a specific time. What would you like to have achieved by the end of a year? Are there certain books you would like to read on this subject? And approximately how many sessions with a professional would you like to do each month?

When you have explored all the information and possibilities, it is time to describe your wish in a concrete and achievable plan. A good plan helps you achieve goals but is not so strict that it affects their feasibility.

Give yourself the space to adjust your plan in the meantime, but don't lose sight of your goal. Plans can go on indefinitely if you don't choose when they should be realized. Be realistic and open to change.

If it is difficult for you to set concrete goals, you could schedule several evaluation moments for yourself when you look again at how you want to proceed and where you look back on what you have already achieved.

Decide

Deciding helps you in the transition from thinking to doing. By following the process of the spiral of creation, you gradually grow towards a decision. If you have gone through the previous steps correctly, the decision will often come naturally. If not, it's helpful to recheck the previous steps to see if you've missed anything.

It is usually better to make decisions than to avoid them. The sense of doubt that arises when you don't make a decision is often detrimental to your belief in change. So sometimes it is better and faster to make a decision, really go for it, and then see how that decision turns out.

It is rarely so black and white that there is only one right and one wrong decision. Usually, both decisions will work reasonably well, and the success that a decision produces mainly has to do with the faith, motivation, and conviction you carry out. And even if you make a mistake, it's often the quickest way to figure out what to do.

Act

You develop your talents and possibilities by acting, and you realize plans. Moreover, this is an excellent way to eliminate shortcomings in your skills partly. But action should not essentially be aimed at that. While acting, you mainly want to do what you are motivated for.

Taking action from motivation has several advantages:

• First, you get more pleasure from doing what you are motivated to do. As a result, you will stay motivated longer and experience success before realizing your wish.

• Secondly, you want to do what feels right because you realize your plans better; this significantly increases the chance of success.

• Thirdly, you always want to consider whether it is practical to act yourself (by reading or doing self-exercises) or outsource handling (such as hiring a coach or therapist). Consider the costs and benefits.

Persevere

To persevere means not to be discouraged when things don't go the way you hoped or expected. And especially personal development almost always goes different than expected because nothing in life is certain. Therefore, your planning should be a guideline or aid, not a straightjacket. When things don't go as planned, your faith gets tested. Remember that trial and error is part of the process and will provide you with helpful information about what the situation looks like.

If you consider in your planning that things do not always go as expected or perhaps are downright disappointing, you can create some space for this. A setback then becomes less drastic. In addition, the valuable information that setbacks provide is crucial for future success.

An entrepreneur who discovers that his customers will leave if he economizes too much on service has not only learned a wise lesson but conversely may be able to acquire more customers by investing in service. And a coachee who starts dating again after a long time and who throws his whole life story on the table during the first conversation knows that he should not go that fast on subsequent dates.

In short, you learn the most from your mistakes. Do not view this as a setback, but as information about realizing personal growth even better.

Back to receiving

When you have gone through the entire process of the creation spiral, you come back to receive. This time it's about receiving the success that your wish has become a reality. Take the time to enjoy it and, if necessary, also consider how you can keep the success coming.

Yet receiving is not the most essential part of the creation process. It would be best to go through all phases as smoothly as possible. After all, you have made a beautiful journey that has not only made your wish reality but also ensured personal growth and getting in touch with new friends. You have experienced the joy of fantasizing about your wishes, a fresh new idea, shared enthusiasm, making the right decisions, and putting your talents to the test.

Success often only lasts a short time. The journey is more important than the goal because personal growth is a process that never ends.

Receiving can also mean that you can't make your wish come true. The reception then consists of the disappointment of realizing that the desire has not come true. Perhaps even more important here is that the journey matters more than the destination. Because regardless of success or failure, you have been able to experience pleasure in many areas. Although it doesn't have to seem that way, disappointment is also a gift because it can give rise to a new wish that is more based on the (im)possibilities of reality.

An essential insight into realizing wishes is that some desires are no longer possible. No person reading this will ever win Wimbledon. But the emotional equivalent of winning Wimbledon is within reach. Someone who plunges into winning a local tennis match with the same dedication can experience the same emotions as the winner of Wimbledon.

Ultimately, people only want to realize their wishes because they expect to feel better about achieving those wishes. If you reach the same feeling with a more attainable wish, that is the gain of receiving in disappointment.