The distance between your dreams and reality is called action.

The distance between your dreams and reality is called action. – Unknown

“Who wants to visit another planet?” That was my dream when I was young, but I didn’t act.

What does that mean?
This quote is about making your dreams a reality. We all have them, although we might call them aspirations or plans. But we all want to accomplish things.

These things start as ideas in our minds. We develop them, perhaps even go so far as to come up with a plan for how to make it happen. Sometimes the plans are detailed, and other times quite general in nature.

But to move that idea from our mind and make it happen in the real world, that will take more than our thoughts. We need something a little more concrete to get things done, to bring our dream to life.

That thing is called action. Without it, we have thoughts, ideas, plans, and intentions, but there are no results. Without action, we have nothing concrete, nothing real. There is just a dream, without substance.

Why is taking action important?
If we take action, we can move our dream forward. It isn’t a guarantee that things will work. Look at all the people who dreamed of flying. Other than those in hot air balloons, no one was able to make that dream a reality until the Wright brothers got all the pieces together and made the dream real.

But without action, and her handmaidens observation, analysis, research, and perseverance, we would never even get started, and the Wright brothers would never have gotten off the ground. Yes, eventually someone else would have gotten around to doing it, but it would have been someone of action, right?

The basic pattern is this: You have to take an action, and then observe what result you achieved. You have to figure out how the desired and actual results differed, and what caused the difference. You have to do research to figure out what to adjust for your next attempt, and repeat as often as it takes to achieve your result.

But it all comes back to action. You have to do something to get that first experimental result. And action isn’t just physical things, as doing your analysis and research are also actions, right? And that series of actions, with changes in each iteration, which will move our dream towards reality.

Where can I apply this in my life?
How many of us dreamed of going into space growing up? For those who grew up in the heyday of manned space flight, it was quite a powerful dream. But how many of us took action on that dream? I know I did not. I set that dream aside to pursue other interests. And you know what? Without action, nothing has happened.

Fortunately, others had the same dream and have been working diligently. Hopefully, there will be ‘affordable’ space trips for tourists before I’m too old and feeble to fly on one of them. Who knows, in a few years I may look into trying to contribute to the dream.

What are your dreams? Not the ones which are interesting but no longer really of interest, but the ones which mean something to you. Take a moment and scan back through your life and see what you can find. Don’t forget to go all the way back to your childhood, that was fertile ground for many of us, right?

Try to narrow the list down to your top three dreams. Take a moment and grab some paper and write down your top three dreams so you can’t ever forget them. Besides being able to fly or see through things, what else made your list? Or is your list completely different from mine?

And that’s part of what is great about the variety in the human race, between all of us, our dreams cover nearly every possible path forward. We balance each-other and compliment each-other. Between all of us, we can do anything and everything, if we just take a little action.

And it doesn’t require us to be strong, young, or particularly good looking. Many of humanities greatest dreams have come to reality via frail old people. From Edison, Einstein, and Mother Teresa, for starters, we have the banished the night, attained a profound understanding of the universe, and found an amazing level of love for our fellow humans.

They each had dreams. Some started on them early in their lives, others waited until much later in their lives to get started. But they eventually got around to taking action on their dreams. And the world was changed in profound and meaningful ways, all because of the actions they took.

What action are you willing to take towards your dreams? You don’t have to achieve all of it tomorrow. You can take a small step. After all, Einstein didn’t work in a vacuum, he built on what others before him discovered. You may not get there, but your actions may lay the foundation for others.

Take a moment to write down a step, even a small one, which you can take towards making your dream a reality. Then pick one and do it. Sooner would be better than later. Now would be better still.

From: Twitter, @RealChrisPowell
confirmed at : https://twitter.com/RealChrisPowell/status/356278726591397888
Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center