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lemmy users who have achived their dreams/goal, how did you do it?

even if its just one goal or dream that you achived and such, how did you do it and how did iy make you feel?

im honestly struggling to achive things i want becasue i tend to dream big so how did you all do it?

48 comments
  • Well, I just worked my ass off. Now, I can buy as much candy as I could ever want.

    Unfortunately, I've lost the taste for it, and it's no longer as appealing as it was when I was 5.

    Dream achieved?

  • Step one is to actually figure out what you want. Too many people spend their whole lives chasing after something they think they are supposed to want, and end up further from happiness every day.

  • Sure, there was hard work. A lot of time spent getting good at what I do, studying, and what not. But I'm going to be blunt: it was a lot of luck. Anyone who says otherwise is probably lacking insight.

    Luck in having the circumstances where I was able to focus enough efforts and have the energy to do so. Luck in encountering the right opportunity and people along the way.

    Not trying to downplay effort, but a lot of comments make it seem like all you have to do is work hard and you'll get rewarded. Sometimes you totally will. And other times you'll crash and burn or be taken advantage of.

  • I got a super-cool first job because my mother happened to be jabbering about me to a guy who thought it’d be neat to have an intern. Note that this wasn’t some rich-folks club cotillion, she was a part time dental hygienist making small talk during a cleaning.

    Edit (the first line of my post disappeared:)

    “Luck is the most important factor in success; more than hard work, more than money.”

  • It’s not much, but my dream has been to have an apartment and consistent income at the same time.

    I’m 40 and I’m about to achieve it.

    I honestly can even remember my other dreams except in the faintest of washed out images.

    Joining a men’s group helped. Working through trauma has freed up a lot of my mental resources. I can work more, I’m less prone to escape into drugs, junk food, whatever. I’m able to recognize my feelings and hence can make decisions easily instead of always having to think them through.

    I’m a little envious of those who had this stability in their twenties — a place of their own, that they can organize however they like and be alone whenever they want, plus money to furnish it and not worry about bills going unpaid. But mostly I’ve learned not to compare because it’s so damned painful and unproductive.

    I’d say fundamentally the way I achieved it was by learning to take baby steps. A year ago I was homeless. I got a job washing cars. Now I’m a kitchen designer and I’m about to get my own apartment.

    I wish I had this kind of mental health twenty years ago. But I’m glad I didn’t go another twenty years without attaining it.

  • I lowered my expectations. Putting less pressure on myself gave me the breathing room to eventually realize that what I thought I wanted was wrong. I’m not the person I imagined I was going to be and I’m grateful for it.

  • I made a plan, broke that plan up into achievable goals, and then persevered until I reached them. I made sure to learn how to pause instead of giving up too.

  • At least some of my goals are pretty straightforward lol. Travel-related goals really just require following the thread from beginning to end to figure out all the things you'll need:

    I've always wanted to see the northern lights. First I searched for tours to see where and when people tend to go. It basically split into Alaska or Scandinavian countries, and it was a lot cheaper for me to go to Alaska. I also found a place with large, skyward facing windows to allow for viewing from within a heated space, because I am not built for cold weather nonsense.

    I'm no longer in school, so I like to travel off season. With a range of months in hand (auroras are best viewed from fall to early spring) I checked in with a friend to see if they wanted to come with (they did!), which further narrowed the date range. We found a package at a price point we both liked, booked flights that overlapped as much as possible, shopped for suitable cold weather clothes, figured out accommodations and necessary time off.

    The first time I saw the light with my own eyes, I was actually surprised by how faint they were. They showed up way more strongly on my camera. But I really love astrological phenomena, so I spent most of the nights there bumbling around in the dark with my camera, fiddling with the long exposure settings, experimenting with various makeshift tripods (coat rack ended up being my favorite) and just laying back and watching the auroras while my friend was snoring away. I still remember one moment where the aurora was particularly strong, wiggling around in a large stripe across the sky directly above me.

  • It takes time. I’m ten years into my career as a cinematographer and I still feel like I haven’t achieved “it” yet.

48 comments