How to Access Unlimited Power from Your Big, Audacious Dream

Posted On 18 March 2025

“Nothing happens unless first a dream.” – Carl Sandburg

What if the key to unlimited energy, motivation, and success was already within you—hidden in your biggest, most audacious dream? In this post, we take a dive into your dreams and how you can use them effectively.

A dream can be described as an aspiration, ambition, or ideal. They come in all shapes and sizes. Anything that you want, or what you would like to be or do is a dream. 

Children are masters of dreaming! Just ask them what they are going to be when they grow up and they will get excited as they tell you exactly what they are going to be. As we grow into adults, we often put our dreams aside as childish fantasies. Why do we settle for being realistic?

Believe In the Impossible

For millennia it was believed that it was impossible to run a mile in less than four minutes. The four-minute mile seemed to be the limit for humans. Experts knew what the conditions would be for the record to be broken. Then, in 1954 Roger Bannister broke the record! When he broke the record, there were none of the “right” conditions that the experts had predicted.

After Roger Bannister broke the record, the record was broken again just 46 days later. A year later three runners broke the record in a single race. How was that possible? It turns out that the four-minute mile was a psychological barrier, not a physical barrier.

If there is something we dream of doing or having, we can look and see if anyone else has done that. By finding someone who’s done it, you know it’s possible that you can do it too! If no one has done it, maybe you can be the first one! Things are only impossible until they are actually accomplished.

Define Your Dream

So, what’s your big, audacious dream? It’s what you would like to be, do, or have if you could have anything you want. There may be things in your life that you are already happy with having. That’s awesome! What about the things you don’t have? Not sure?

Say you were given $20 Million. It’ll be deposited in your bank account at midnight tonight. What would you do? What would you change? Would you change jobs? Start a business? Maybe you would like to donate your time or money to a worthy cause. Whatever it is, that is your BIG Dream!

Align Your Dream to Your Why & Values

Now that you know what your big dream is, let’s take things a step further. Simon Sinek, in his book “Start with Why” (listed in Canoosa’s Book List) wrote about the importance of knowing why we are doing what we are doing. This is not only beneficial for having direction, it also provides inspiration when things get tough.

Since this is your dream, you get to customize it to truly make it yours! Align it with your values. If you haven’t ever given much thought to what your values are, today’s your day. Grab a piece of paper, open your word processor, or even turn to your favorite AI. Go with what resonates with you, and don’t worry about the rest.

Embrace a Growth Mindset

Albert Einstein said that your current problems cannot be solved with the same level of thinking that created them. If you are going to pursue your dream, you must be willing to grow.

We can gradually change over time. That takes a substantial amount of time. A faster way to transform ourselves is with the future-self method. What is that? We figure out how we would like to be in 3 years, then we start applying those character traits in our life now.

When using the future-self method, it is best to blend it with the 10X principle. We only need to change a bit in order to grow 2X. If we set a goal to grow 10X, we have to be very different than we currently are. How do we grow 10X? By having an audacious dream!

Visualize Your Dream 

When I learned how to use spreadsheet software in college, I learned about something called WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzy-wig). It stands for What You See Is What You Get. This applies to your dreams as well as spreadsheets.

Make a vision board for yourself. It doesn’t matter if you cut pictures out of magazines, or if you download pictures from the internet to make a collage. Just make your vision board about what you want in your life.

You can also use your computer or phone wallpaper to put your dreams on display. The important thing is to have visuals of your dreams in front of you. Why have random pictures as your wallpaper when you can have powerful reminders to yourself?

Chunk It into Achievable Goals

If you know how you’ll achieve your dream it’s too small! Set your sights high. When you look at your big, audacious dream, you will have no idea how you will get there. That is where your achievable goals come into play.

Say you want to build a billion-dollar business. First, you should focus on $100 in revenue. Then, $1,000. Next, $100,000. Maybe your next goal is a million dollars. Keep stepping it up until you hit the billion-dollar mark. At the same time, ask yourself what the leader of your billion dollar company would be doing to change your actions and thoughts. (Notice I said think like a CEO, not spend like a CEO!)

Don’t worry about the whole process. Take it step by step. All along your journey the next step is the important one for you to focus on. Like the saying, “Walk a mile, see a mile, walk a second mile another mile.” Big dreams are achieved by working towards bite-sized goals that lead to your dream.

Build a Support System

No man (or woman) is an island. We are all interconnected with each other. We don’t have enough time to learn how to do everything ourselves. Team up with people who can complement your skills. Find people who can fill the gaps for you.

It is also important to form a group of people (a mastermind) who you can bounce ideas off each other. Your group can be one where ideas are freely shared. Books are talked about. This group can also celebrate each other’s successes.

Another important person who can help you on your journey is a coach, mentor, or accountability partner. The person may be able to fill all three roles, or the roles could be filled by separate individuals. They help keep you moving in the right direction.

Protect Your Dream

It’s sad to say, but not everyone will encourage you. Some will try to talk you out of pursuing your dream because they are trying to protect you. They got hurt in the past, and they are afraid that you might get hurt.

Some people may be jealous of you. They don’t want to see you do something they are afraid to do. Maybe they are afraid that if you change you won’t like them anymore. They most likely are operating from a scarcity mentality – there’s only so much to go around, so if you get more, they must somehow have less.

I like to think of myself as wearing a bullet-proof vest while being friendly and interacting with others. This way, I am protecting myself, yet still being myself with other people.

Take Consistent Action

Being consistent can be taken two different ways. The first way is that we are showing up regularly. In fact, simply showing up starts you moving in the right direction. When we show up regularly and when we say we will, we become dependable.

The second way of being consistent is with our message and actions. Are they the same every time, or do we waffle back and forth. One week we’re winning, the next week we feel sunk, then back up and back down again. Or are we heading in direction A one week, then direction B the following week? Do other people know where we stand on topics? That is a part of consistency.

Embrace Failure

We are all human, and as a result, we are not perfect. In order to accomplish a big, audacious dream we will have to do things we have never done before. Maybe we’ll do things that no human before us has done before! That means that there will be failures along the way.

Think of a young child learning to walk. They stand up holding onto the edge of the couch. Only two steps from the couch to the coffee table, but they fall after the first step.

Walking is something they’ve never done before, but they see other people walking so they believe they can walk, too. They stand back up and try again and maybe that time they make it to the coffee table!

Now the parents are encouraging the kid to walk a half dozen steps. The parents will go back and forth between challenging the kid to walk on their own and holding the kid’s hands to help them walk. The whole process of learning to walk is learned from failure. As adults, we learn the same way. The trick is to keep the failures as small as possible.

Give Back Along the Way

As I mentioned earlier, we are all interconnected. We are all walking our own path through life. Some people are ahead of us, and we can learn from them. Other people are behind us on the path, and we can lend them a hand.

When we have an abundance mindset, we know that there is enough to go around. We can give to others without fear. Maybe we will help them and they will pass us. That does not mean that we are worth less because of that.

I believe the best way we can give to others is to help them with the things they cannot do for themselves. A smaller way we can help others is simply by being courteous to them – holding a door open, helping them reach an item, or just giving them a smile.

Celebrate Your Wins (Big & Small)

While we fail our way to success, we need to celebrate our wins along the way. The small wins can be a small reward or even acknowledging the win to ourselves. Feel free to do a little happy dance if you want!

The bigger wins can and ought to be celebrated, however appropriate. Take a day off from work. Maybe take that cruise you’ve been wanting to go on. The reward can be a tangible thing, or it can be an experience.

Some of the smaller wins can be that you did something for the first time. Then, it could be that you consistently did something for a whole week or a month. The wins you celebrate are the evidence that you are making progress toward your goals and dreams.

Dream Big and Keep Dreaming

Accomplishing big dreams may seem impossible until they are achieved! You can not only have your big dream, but you can also pursue it and make it a reality. We are given these dreams because we can accomplish them.

When we achieve a dream, we free ourselves to pursue another dream. Just remember to ask yourself if the dream fills a need, or is it something that is ego-driven (such as an amount of money)? When we chase after money as a dream, it is like a mirage – we never seem to reach that illusion.

“The only person’s permission you need to live your dreams is your own.” — Mastin Kipp

I challenge you to muster up the courage to chase after your big, audacious dream with everything you have! Find something that is so big that there is no way you can accomplish it being the person you are currently. Then, when you do finally achieve your big dream, you’ll be even more excited about who you became than the dream that you accomplished. You can find a big, audacious dream that will give you the inspiration to become unstoppable!