This post was originally published in 2015 · Jacob M Hansen

Dreams, goals, and strenuous requirements spur achievement.  As a rule of life, it is only through working towards success in those areas that you will reach (and expand) your top level of productivity, growth, and competency. 

I’m a firm believer that in most situations, people rise or fall to the occasion.  In the summer of 2014 I spent a few weeks at a youth entrepreneur camp at Utah Valley University.  During the last three days of the camp we were tasked with finding and field-testing a business idea, creating a researched business model, and getting a group of experienced investors to think that we could actually make money. 

I was working in a team of five other teenagers.  We didn’t have a perfect idea, and we didn’t have many skills, and none of us had done anything like this before.  We did, however, have a goal to succeed at a daunting task. We worked like crazy: we did customer validation, loads of research, designed a legal organization, built supply chains, made financial projections, and designed logos.  We then wrapped everything up in an eye-catching presentation and made our sales pitch. 

As a result of our labor, the investors loved what we had done and we were able to bask in our achievement.  But that really isn’t the point of the story. 

Our presentation deadline on the last day had been 7:00p.  At 6:55 we were frantically printing documents and running down the halls looking for a thumbdrive (seriously).  We made it, but just barely. I’m confident though that if we had been given another day to prepare, we would still be scrambling just as frantically.  Like a goldfish, we would have expanded to fill whatever time we were given.

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To best pursue excellence, we have to apply this principle to our own lives by creating situations that force us to rise.  If we don’t, we’ll naturally stagnate to comfort. If we stay in our “comfort zones”, we won’t ever grow. If we don’t grow, life doesn’t get any better.

This is one of the reasons it is crucially important to dream big.

Now I’ve heard (and given) my fair share of speeches on “reaching for the stars”, so I’ll avoid being cliché as much as possible.  That said, I’m good at dreaming up big things: from attending a university at age 16, to raising 6K for a trip to an international conference in Japan, to creating a culture of excellence among teenagers, to becoming a millionaire and international public speaker in my 20’s.  I obviously haven’t achieved all of those dreams yet, but along the way I have learned that high aspirations are DEFINITELY the way to go.

Not only do big dreams expand our abilities and push personal growth, they also exponentially raise your level of tangible success.  It has been said that you lose 100% of the risks you don’t take. Likewise, our greatest limitations are self-imposed. It has been my experience–and the testimony of many much more successful people–that if you brave the fears that surround audacious goals, you’ll actually begin to amaze yourself.  Not to mention that waking up every day with high positive motivation is a great way to live life.

Most of the teenagers I talk to want very badly to start doing SOMETHING great with their lives.  The only problem is that they don’t know what that something is. The problem here is simple: if you don’t know where you want to be, how on earth are you going to “dream big” about it, let alone get there?

If you haven’t yet found your big dream, the rest of this article is for you.  While I don’t claim to be an expert on this topic yet, I have learned to continually solve this problem for myself.   I hope my story will assist you in solving it for yourself. 

My story – How to Find Your Big Dreams

I spent a good portion of three months actively trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.  I had been reading and re-reading two books by Ken Robinson (The Element, and Finding Your Element); his thesis is that you won’t be completely satisfied with life until you find and do things that harmonize your aptitudes and passions.  When you find these types of things, you’ve found what he calls your Element.

I knew generally what I liked and what I was good at, but I was stuck trying to figure out what direction I should take my life.  I hadn’t found my Element–or anything even close. Determined to change this, I decided to make it my main field of study. In hindsight, I realize that this was the best thing I could have done, because answers to big life questions rarely fall into our laps.   

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While I was looking for my big dream, I joined a class with mentors who were dedicated to helping me in this endeavor.  A few weeks into the class we embarked on a 2-day retreat designed to give us the opportunity to do some serious soul-searching.  This happened to be just what I needed, and I consider attending this retreat to be (for me) the single most important event of that entire calendar year.

I spent the first day doing some intense pondering: in the quiet of an overcast pasture I reflected for hours on the conclusions I had reached over the last months of searching.  I eventually nailed down a long-term goal of who I wanted to be in the future. I didn’t know any specifics, but I had enough to get started. I share this experience because of how important I think it is to truly ponder your life and connect with your inner desires and beliefs. 

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The next part of my story actually happened when I had just begun my search for my life’s big dream.   I was invited out to a surprise 16th birthday party for an old friend who lived about an hour away. I wasn’t really part of this friend’s main social group, but I decided to go anyways.  To be honest, I regretted that decision for a long time. The party was outdoors in a grassy park (a terrible place to find hiding places and actually surprise someone), it was hot, and I knew maybe one or two people. 

I wasn’t having fun, you can be sure.  But I did end up talking with an older boy who I learned was already attending college–at age 16.  I mentioned that that sounded interesting to me, and he basically said that I should go for it. On the way home I was like “Yeah, why not?”

Attending college early turned out to be a first step towards my big dream, and I went for it.  I might never have decided to do so if I hadn’t talked to someone who was already doing it, and learned that it was a practical possibility.  As crucial as it is to look inward to find big dreams, it is equally important to look outward for ideas and options. If you haven’t found what you want to do, there is a great chance that you just haven’t been exposed to it yet.

It’s like music: you won’t learn that your life’s work is to become a Jazz pianist if you’ve never listened to anything but Rock and Roll.

Or like charity: you won’t become Mother Teresa without ever learning about people who are starving.

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I have now achieved a good portion of my short-term goals, but along the way I’ve found that my big dreams keep evolving–refining, expanding, etc–on almost a monthly basis.  Just last week I was laying in bed thinking about my life, when inspiration struck. Next thing I knew I was at my desk writing out new, clear, specific goals for the next year.  The beauty of big dreams is that they become better as you learn, grow, and–most importantly–take action.  

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You’ve now heard my story and my suggestions.  I realize that everyone will take a slightly different path towards finding their big dreams in life, so let us know in the comments what has worked for you.  
Above all else, dream big and pursue excellence!