Make Time to Live Your Dreams

I am a big believer in encouraging people to follow their dreams. The thought comes across in my book, Living More Than OK, in the chapter on Goal Setting. I also promote following dreams to students that I teach. So the book, Live Your Dreams, by Jean Criss caught my attention easily and I had to read it.

Jean Criss exudes the entrepreneurial spirit in her life and in her book. According to her website, jeancrissmedia.com she has over 25 years in the career of media services. She lives in New Jersey and works in New York City.

Her book Live Your Dreams is a third book in her My Pain Woke Me Up Trilogy. I have not read the first two books but I am sure they are as enjoyable and insightful as this one. This title focused in on entrepreneurship, creativity, dreaming Big and living out your dreams. An important few phrases that stood out to me were found on page 36, “Believe that no matter how well you do something, you can always do it better. And chances are you will! Make change happen and believe in your dreams.”

Those are powerful thoughts. To live your dreams you need to really believe in them. Then in living the dream there is the reminder in her thought to keep growing and improving so that you are always spiraling up to new heights in your life. If you are living a dream filled life you do not settle for plateaus but keep spiraling up. I speak much about that in Living More Than OK.

In Jean’s book she is refreshingly honest that to Live Your Dreams does not mean that you have an easy life. She is transparent about her past struggles with relationships, her battles with health problems in battling cancer and her winding road of her career journey. You read of her initial passion in starting a jewelry business and then the progression into work in media. She provides useful resources for Business and Women’s Entrepreneur Organizations for readers with that interest for follow up.

Her emphasis in Live Your Dreams is found in the doing not just keeping the dream a wish inside that never comes to fruition. On page 71 her doing spirit shares, “In life, we need to make the magic happen, remember. What you are doing is most likely for your family or a loved one. … We live our lives to their fullest. We stop to smell the roses. We live our dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you, you can’t live your dreams. If they do, run the other way. Don’t look back.” My thoughts on this is we have to be active in living out our dreams. They are not going to happen just sitting in the recliner flipping through channels. She is also reminding us to not listen to the negativity. That is not to say, if a concerned person has an honest critique -- do listen and grow from it, but her focus seems to be on the “You Can’t” people who try to pull us away from dreams we are following. Run from them.

Live Your Dreams is an inspiring story that can help motivate and encourage you to dream big and live out the dream that is in your heart.

Reflection: What are a couple of dreams that are inside your heart that you want to move forward living them out? Is there any negativity coming at your dream life that you need to move away from to move towards living your dreams? What was the last rose in life that you took time to smell?