What makes you think you deserve to have your dream come true?

Who do you think you are?

Look at all the other people around you, far more deserving. More honest, more upstanding, more charitable, smarter and more talented. If they can’t have their dreams come true how can you possibly even think you have what it takes, in any way, shape or form?

I’ve been “hit” with this more than once in my life…

I even bought into it when I was younger and less experienced with the way life really works.

I remember the ridicule came from many directions and from people who I thought wanted the best for me. Well, in their minds, trying to steer me clear from the pain and suffering of failure was acting in my best interest. It was the assumption I would fail that was much more painful.

Then one day, at some point in time when I was still fairly young, I decided not to tell anyone about something I wanted. I just kept it to myself. Thought about it all the time. Imagined having it and what it would be like to play with it …it was a toy. A very different kind of toy than the kind I would normally have shown an interest in.

In fact I remember only mentioning it to my Father …once.

You guessed it, the toy showed up. Maybe it was for my birthday or Christmas. The point was that I didn’t tell my friends about it. I kept it to myself. Obviously it made an impression on my father.

I came to realize from that experience, that by not telling anyone what my dream was, I didn’t have to defend it, or myself. If nobody knew about it, I didn’t have to justify that I deserved it. In fact, whether or not I was good enough for it was no longer an issue…

The lesson was so simple:

If I believed I could have my dream and kept on believing it …it would come true. It was the act of believing that was the key. The fact that I believed it could happen was the “magical initiation” which swept away any doubts.

Over time I came to understand this simple yet powerful process as “knowingness”.

When you know something is going to happen, you’ve moved beyond wishing and hoping or looking for others to give you permission to make your dream come true.

Knowing and expecting something was possible, in your life, is the secret of moving something from the inner world of your imagination, to the outer world of your day-to-day reality.

The lesson I learned as a kid?

It doesn’t matter what your day-to-day reality looks like and feels like. What you know and expect will find a way to appear in your life.

You just have to “know it”

-Bob Baran