Step 3 - Developing Your Dreams

Developing Your Dreams

https://www.restoredminds.com/5-Rules-For-Recovery

Identifying and actively pursuing my dreams was vital to my victory over obsessive thoughts, and it will be vital to your victory as well. I believe that you will have a hard time achieving a life free from the obsessive cycle if you cannot first visualize it.

For that reason, I will introduce a concept that was instrumental in my success called dream-lining. It is a concept I learned and have drawn from author Tim Ferris, in his book The 4 hour Work Week.[i]  To summarize briefly, a dream-line is basically a dream combined with a time-line to create a “Dreamline.” However, for the purpose of this program I will just refer to them as dreams.

To be clear, dreams are not the same thing as goals. Goals are milestones that a person aims to achieve. For example, your goal may be to one day graduate college, purchase a house, get married, or retire. While these are great goals to have in life, they will not be nearly as beneficial as dreams in your victory over obsessive thoughts.

On the other hand, a dream is something that is backed with passion and excitement. A dream is very personal. A dream is something you live out, as opposed to a milestone you reach.

So if I asked you to set a goal for for overcoming OCD you might respond by saying that your goal is to experience fewer obsessive thoughts or decrease your depression. While this might be a good goal, this mindset will not help you succeed in your victory because ultimately you are still maintaining your focus on the problem of obsessions versus getting your life back.

Additionally, by focusing on your obsessive thoughts you will always see the negative in your life because you will continuously be evaluating the level of your obsessive thoughts. Conversely, if you can place your focus on getting your life back and living out your dreams you will constantly be evaluating your progress, instead of your problem. And by doing so you will maintain a much more positive perspective on your life.

Therefore, instead of focusing on eliminating obsessive thoughts, I recommend focusing on taking your life back from obsessive thoughts. By adopting this mindset you will develop a much more positive perspective on your life, and as a byproduct you will notice a dramatic reduction with the amount of time you spend on obsessions and compulsions.

As I said, a dream can be defined as an activity, an experience, or state of achievement, that you find exceptionally gratifying and that is backed by a passionate desire. A dream is something that makes you feel alive and gives your life purpose. To expand, you can identify your dreams by focusing on the true desires of your heart, as well as the passions in your life. Focus on something that excites you, something that ignites a fire in you, something that makes you feel alive.