How To Find Courage To Pursue Your Dreams | 10 Career Tips

Have you ever wondered why most people are stuck in jobs and careers that they hate? It’s not because they lack the skills, or the money, or the right opportunities. It’s because they lack the courage to pursue their dreams and follow their hearts.

If you’re struggling to find courage to pursue your dreams, I don’t blame you. In school they don’t teach you how to find the courage to follow your heart. They teach you how to follow the norm and do what everyone else is doing.

Here are 10 tips to find courage to pursue your dreams:

#1. Find out who you really are.

To find the courage to pursue your dreams, first you need to understand who you really are at the core of your being. Why?

First, you want to make sure that you’re not pursuing the wrong dream. Secondly, when self-doubt starts creeping in, and when you’ll be faced with challenges along your journey, knowing who you really are will be your most powerful and motivating force that drives you to keep going.

#2. Acknowledge what your dream is & make it official.

You’ve probably had this dream at the back of your mind for years. But you’ve been ignoring that inner voice that keeps trying to redirect you on your right path so you can be happy and fulfilled in your career.

Resisting and rejecting your dream and what your heart truly wants is painful. It’s an act of self-denial and self-betrayal. Stop denying what your dream is and be honest with yourself. Make it official and write it on a piece of paper. I know it’s scary, but it’s also relieving.

Related: Living A Life Of Purpose | Every Person Has A Purpose In Life

#3. Work on your mindset to find the courage to pursue your dreams.

Okay so you’ve finally built up the courage to acknowledge your dream and made it official. Now to find courage to pursue your dream and not give up halfway through, you need to really work on your mindset.

Mindset is key to pursuing your dreams, overcoming challenges, self-doubt, and achieving your goals. It’s what differentiates between quitters and achievers. Shifting from a fixed and scarcity mindset, to a growth and abundance mindset is essential if you want to find courage to pursue your dreams, and actually getting there.

RELATED: How to Quit Your 9-5 Job Without Losing Your Sanity

#4. Reframe the meaning of ‘failure’.

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think about failure?

Fear… vulnerability… rejection…shame… self-doubt?

These are all heavy emotions that hold us back from finding the courage to pursue our dreams. We tend to make decisions that avoid triggering these feeling in our life. But when you think about it, I’m sure you’ve experienced these feelings one way or another.

The truth is that everyone fails in their life at some point. And everyone experiences these kinds of emotions. If you never failed in anything, it means that you’re not doing much in your life.

What differentiates between the achievers and the quitters is that the former perceive failure as an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and become better, wiser, and stronger.

Finding the courage to pursue your dreams and overcome challenges is what actually transforms failure to success.

Courage is not the absence of fear but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Nelson Mandela

Related: How to Overcome Fear of Failure in Your Career

#5. Knowing your self-worth to find the courage to pursue your dreams.

Self-worth acts as a solid foundation when pursing your dreams. As you build up the courage to pursue your dreams, you will be faced with people who question your choices and vision.

Most people will not understand why you want to change you career. They will question your skills and abilities to pursue your dreams and make it happen. But that’s okay, they don’t need to understand and you don’t need anyone’s approval to live your best life.

Knowing your self-worth will empower you to overcome the self-doubt that start creeping in when others doubt you.

#6. Stop caring about what others think.

You might underestimate how powerful this can be. Most people don’t find the courage to follow their hearts because they are scared of people judging them.

In reality, you’ll always find people that are going to criticize you. So might as well do what sets your soul on fire and make your dreams come true. The people who stick around and root for you are the kind of people you want in your life.

Related: 15 Questions To Discover Your Life Purpose

#7. Listen to your intuition.

You intuition is the best guidance that you can get. It acts as an internal compass that guides you on which direction to take. Our intuition is that inner voice and gut feeling that we cannot really explain or grasp, but we know that it’s there.

Your intuition will always guide you on the best path with its subtle art of grace and spontaneity. You just have to learn how to listen, and find the courage to follow your inner voice and take a leap of faith.

Related: Spiritual Mentoring | Inner Wisdom

#8. Design your roadmap to pursue your dreams.

Okay so enough with the inner work. Time to get busy and take action.

Designing your roadmap plays an important role in finding the courage to pursue your dreams. Get a piece of paper and draw a line starting with where you’re currently at and where you want to be. Write down the steps that you need to take so you start giving shape to your vision.

Put a timeline to have an idea of how much time it will take you to get there. Break down your vision into small actionable steps. This will help you feel less overwhelmed and realize that your dream is truly achievable.

Related: What Is A Basic Requirement For A Fulfilling Career Path?

#9. Use the resources you have or create them.

As you’re doing your action plan, you need to check in with yourself and make a list of the resources that you already have which you can utilize in your action plan.

List down your skills, your talents, your network of people, professional and personal experiences, anything you can think of which might be useful along your journey.

Then you need to make another list of resources you need to get, to help you arrive where you want to be. So write down any skills that you need to learn, or people you need to hire, or items you need to purchase to implement your vision.

#10. Practice visualization.

I don’t care if you think this is woo-woo, or that it’s bulls*it. Honestly, if you want to find courage to pursue your dreams, you need to visualize yourself achieving your dreams.

Visualization helps to stimulate your brain and cultivate the good feelings that you would feel when you pursue your dreams and start living them.

Not only will this act as a motivational and inspirational force, but your subconscious mind will start building up a framework to inspire you to take the right actions to pursue your dreams.

Before you know it, you start attracting the right opportunities in your life. You start being more open to change, and you find the courage to pursue your dreams and start living your best life.

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