As a child, I loved to play in the big woods near our home. There never seemed to be an end to the exciting adventures we could have there. We rode our bikes on the dirt roads that went through the woods. We climbed on, made forts out of, and hid behind the many rock formations that dotted the woods.

One day some men and equipment appeared in the woods. The men began to dig a big hole, which we gradually came to realize was to be the basement of a house. We went to the site each day after the men had finished to see the progress they had made that day. The work went on for many days. and that hole got bigger and bigger.

One day the men packed up their equipment and left. We watched and waited for them to return. They did not. After about a week our curiosity got the best of us, and we slowly approached the place the men had been digging, to get a closer look at what had happened. We played in and around that hole for the next several weeks until we became bored and moved on to another part of the woods. Although we wondered what had become of the plans to build the house, we never saw anyone at that place again.

I have no idea why that house was never built. I have often wondered over the years why someone would begin a project like that and not complete it. Whatever the reason, it has always served as an example to me that whatever I am going to do I need to count the cost before I begin.

That cost can include money, time, energy or any other resources. Sometimes the costs are simple obstacles that we can’t overcome no matter what we do. I would love to get my private airplane pilot’s license, but I have a visual impairment that would keep me from ever passing that portion of the examination. At other times, the cost may simply require an ability we do not possess. My wife is a Certified Public Accountant. While I have gained a true appreciation for what she does, I just do not have the ability with numbers to even consider pursuing that or any similar field of study.

A cost we decide is too great might involve something we simply are not willing to invest the time money and effort into accomplishing. On at least two occasions in my life I have seriously considered pursuing a Ph D. In each case I had the opportunity and enough interest to begin the process. In each case, and for different reasons, I decided that the time and energy and money in my life would produce more of the things I want by investing them in other pursuits. I am over simplifying what, in each case, was a deliberate involved process, but the underlying principle remains the same. Counting the cost involves understanding what I really want to accomplish and then determining what I am willing to do that will most effectively get me to where I want to be.

This sounds so simple and so obvious. Yet it is amazing how often we do exactly the opposite. We get caught up in a dynamic presentation of an exciting business opportunity, or we think of a great new career opportunity, and we think of all the things we could do with the amazing amounts of money we are told others are making in this fantastic, once in a lifetime opportunity that is being presented to us.

What do we want to do with the money? Are we interested in the things we will have to do if we pursue this new opportunity? Do we have the dedication and motivation to learn the things we will need to learn in order to be successful at this opportunity? Do we believe we can do what it will take to be successful? These are some of the fundamental questions we must ask ourselves when we count the cost of any new endeavor we are considering.

No one can know exactly what will happen when we begin a new venture. This makes a deliberate, systematic process of counting the cost even more important. What did the people who bought the land and had the hole dug near my childhood home hope to accomplish with what they began? Were they building a family home, a retirement home, a vacation home? Did they underestimate the difficulty of digging in an area as filled with rocks as the woods near my home? Did something unforeseen happen in their lives that suddenly took the money they had earmarked for this project and required them to use it somewhere else? Was there a death in the family? Was there a divorce? Did they simply lose the interest or the motivation that would’ve allowed them to finish this project that they had started?

What do you hope to accomplish as you consider a new opportunity or beginning to look for a new job? What do you want or need in your life that you don’t have already? Do you have a hobby or some other interest that you believe would translate successfully into a profitable business? Do you have some specialized knowledge or ability that you see as marketable and profitable? What skills do you have or are willing to acquire that will give you the possibility of being successful in this new venture?

None of this is intended to discourage you from starting a business or making career adjustments. Beginning something new can be an incredibly satisfying, rewarding experience. If you don’t count the cost, it can turn into a disaster that will consume your time your energy and your money and leave you frustrated discouraged and in debt.

Those who successfully begin new businesses or seek new jobs start with that critical self-examination. Knowing what you want to accomplish must come before even examining your skills and your interests. This will logically lead to an understanding of what you know or are willing to learn. This flows logically and naturally into a realization of what you are willing to invest yourself in to achieve this success you desire and the realization of your dreams.

Counting the cost before we initiate a change can help establish our dreams and goals in a context of reality. It is one more way to ensure that we will be moving steadily toward success–whatever that means for each of us, in every area of our lives.

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“What if….?” Those are two very powerful words. I enjoy talking with people about their dreams, and I will often ask someone what they would be doing if time and money were not obstacles. I’ve seen people get a faraway look in their eyes and say something that may seem very unrealistic to them but is something they would secretly like very much to do if only they believed it was possible. That is one way to describe a dream.

Another interesting aspect of dreams is the ability to start in the real world of here and now and move into the realm of possibility. The famous playwright whose work, Pygmalion, was the basis for the movie, “My Fair Lady,” said, “You see things; and you say Why? But I dream things that never were; and I say Why not” – George Bernard Shaw.

The story of Eliza Doolittle not only demonstrates what can happen in the life of an individual when dreams are given substance and put into action, but it demonstrates the widespread effect of a dream on the rest of those involved, as in the case of Professor Henry Higgins.

“If you can imagine it, you can achieve it; if you can dream it, you can become it” This is a good starting point for transforming dreams into reality.

The starting point to turning dreams into reality is to set a goal. Simply put, a goal is what you want to achieve. Most sports have goals. Moving something a particular distance to a particular point is achieving a goal and getting rewarded. The best goals are specific, attainable and measurable.

When you think of your dream becoming a reality, what is the first thing you think of to do in order to start getting you there? That is a goal–the first of many you will achieve to make your dream come into reality.

“Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it’s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment” – Tony Robbins.

“A goal is a dream with a deadline” – Napoleon Hill. There are three things absolutely essential to being successful at turning dreams into reality. (1) Set a goal. (2) Write it down. (3) Do it. What is the most basic thing you can think of to do as your first step in making your dream come true? Most people don’t do the next step–Write it down!! A vast amount of research shows that when we write a goal down, our mind sets about to accomplish it. That may sound too simple to be true, but it is so powerful.

I challenge you to write down one simple goal you know you can achieve to begin turning your dream into a reality. You don’t have to tell anyone. You don’t have to show it to anyone–ever. Just look at it yourself from time to time as you do the thing you have written down. I’ll have more to say about this in future articles. This is so important. I cannot over-emphasize it.

“Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal” – Vince Lombardi. You’ll get to the hard work as your dream takes shape. For now, just focus on the easy, clear formation and writing down of one goal. Enjoy your success. Enjoy mastering your dreams.

“What if….?” “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible” – Tony Robbins.

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In the song “The Impossible Dream” from Cervantes’ The Man of La Mancha, Don Quixote describes his quest, the mission that not only defines his life’s purpose but aims beyond his achievements, reaching towards something that is worthy of his best efforts and is still unattainable. That is one way to describe a mission. It may seem like a contradiction in terms to describe our mission as something too big to attain, but that is precisely the point.

How often does the athlete, the straight A student, the prodigy live the balance of their lives with their best days behind them? Clearly their vision was not big enough to be a mission. Finding our mission requires digging deep into who we are. This is a time when recognizing and identifying our core values is critically important. Pursuing our mission requires dedication, determination and perseverance in the face of all types of struggle and adversity.

Don Quixote had many people, from family to outside observers, who were critical of his mission. Even the woman who was radically transformed as a result of his mission was initially critical of him. His mission had to be big enough to carry him through the adversity and to leave him as passionate and determined at the end as he was at the beginning, even though he would never see the fulfillment of the mission in his lifetime.

“When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it” -W. Clement Stone. It takes time to find your mission, and it is certainly possible to make some false starts. Ask a young child what they want to be when they grow up, and you will likely, but not always, find something different than the path they travel as adults. It takes good information and a good self-understanding to find a mission that will last a lifetime–and beyond.

“Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is finished: If you are alive, it isn’t” – Richard Bach. Our mission is not something we discover in a vacuum. “We are not in a position in which we have nothing to work with. We already have capacities, talents, direction, missions, callings” – Abraham Maslow. It is interesting how many times our hobbies and interests form the basis for our mission. When we look at the things we can become totally absorbed in pursuing, this gives some indication of what our mission is.

“The young sailor at sea was ordered to climb a mast to adjust a sail during a violent storm. He got halfway up, looked down, got dizzy and sick. An old sailor on deck shouted up to him Look up, son, look up. Young sailor looked up, regained his composure, and completed his mission. Moral: Look ahead, not back” Wherever you are right now in your life, discovering your mission starts with a realistic look at who you are at this moment, who you want to become, and if you have the skills, the abilities and the desire to get there–no matter what.

Your mission does not have to be big by anyone’s standards but yours, but it must be big enough to claim everything you are and carry you forward beyond yourself. That is worthy of being a mission.

I invite you to start finding that within yourself. What is my mission? What is my life’s calling? What would I like to be remembered for? What is worth my best effort for the rest of my life, even if no one but me sees the value?

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How would you go about identifying your values? First, we need to look at what values are. Values are the things that are essential to you being who you are. Although we do not have one hundred percent agreement on where values come from and how they are formed in each of us, we do know that our lives are more satisfying when our actions are consistent with and a reflection of our values.

As infants and very young children, we receive our values directly from our environment–the people, culture and other influences that impact our lives on a daily basis. This is the time in our lives when we often don’t recognize the separateness of us and others. We start to experience pleasure and pain and form patterns of behavior in response to whether we receive mostly pleasure or mostly pain.

Once we reach the age where we recognize there is a difference between us and the world around us, we begin adopting values by imitating the behavior of the people in our lives. We quickly learn what things we do result in pleasure. We repeat these. We learn to avoid the things that bring us pain. Sometime during this period in my life I spoke up in a class and received recognition and affirmation. I liked this, and I began speaking up in class and other group settings. Interaction with others began to be remembered as a pleasurable experience and became one of the values in my life.

As we get older and ideas and philosophies become more and more a part of our lives, we begin choosing values consistent with our beliefs. These carry over into our relationships as the social aspect of our life plays a more important part in determining who we are. As an example from my life, it was at this stage of my life that my faith became the core value of my life. It began to influence more and more of the decisions that impacted my life. It came to be the defining aspect of my life.

Another way of determining your values is to answer questions centering around happiness. What things make you happy? Who are the people in your life that you would identify as happy? Why do you view these people as happy? A lot of happiness has to do with how we live in relation to our values.

Sometimes things cause us to question our values or to act in opposition to them. Things such as health crises, death of a loved one, drastic change in our financial security can prompt us to act outside of our values. Anger is one of the emotions that can drive us to act in opposition to our values. Greed, jealousy, envy and other emotions can have the same effect.

How healthy is your life in terms of being in line with your values? A simple examination of that question and the way you answer it can go a long way toward bringing you happiness, contentment and a sense of fulfillment. So, what are your values? How consistently are you living your life in harmony with your values?

What is one simple thing you could do today to start living more in line with one or more of your values?

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One of the most surprising things to me is the fact that we can be connected by technology to nearly everyone in the world and still be alone. Someone commented recently on the decreasing tendency to make eye contact today. We are, it seems,becoming more and more a global village populated with isolated people. Is there anything we can do to address this concern? Yes, and it is one of the most effective communication skills there are.

Think about a time you felt absolutely alone and isolated, even if you were surrounded by other people. Now, think about a time you experienced being totally understood, accepted and appreciated, even if there was only one other person present. In fact, concentrate on the person or persons responsible for the positive experience.

Simply put, did that person who made the experience so positive demonstrate extraordinary interest in you and what was going on your life? We never know what is going on in someone else’s life.

That ability to keep the focus totally on another person is the main characteristic of someone who is adept at what is called empathic listening.

It is both flattering and affirming to be around someone who is able to totally focus on us and what we are saying. Our normal tendencies in these situations are to listen until something triggers a story or memory of ours. We get sidetracked by sharing these stories with the other person in the belief that they will help them somehow.

The degree to which we are effective as an empathic listener is the degree to which we can avoid that behavior. Truly effective empathic listeners steer completely away from their own agenda and keep the conversation totally on the agenda being presented by the other person.

Our natural ability to do this varies from person to person. Most of us can be trained to be empathic listeners. We first have to decide this is something we want to do. We must decide the benefit of being this type of listener is worth the effort it takes to learn and practice the skills involved.

In deciding if this skill is something you want to cultivate, go back to thinking of those persons mentioned earlier, the one who had an example and a story for everything you shared and the one who seemed totally focused on you. Was there enough value in the second person to make you decide to become that type of listener.

Empathic listening is simple, but it is not easy. It sometimes takes every bit of concentration to ignore the stories, illustrations and anecdotes that keep coming to mind when listening to someone else. There is some learning involved and a great deal of trial and error. The benefits can be huge, but you may not see them immediately. Really listening to another person just might enable them to make a discovery or breakthrough in their lives.

The person you are listening to in this way will almost certainly find you a very interesting person. You will also learn a lot by focusing totally on someone else. If these sound like things that you would find interesting, then empathic listening might be a skill you would like to learn or develop further.

If you would like to receive new As We Move Forward posts, please subscribe to the As We Move Forward mailing list by clicking here. I release entries on a bi-weekly basis.

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