A person X whose dream is to make 10 million dollars before turning 30 makes fun of another person Y whose dream is to get a job that pays a hundred thousand dollars a year before turning 30. Yet another person Z find these dreams too little because he is dreaming of making a 100 million dollars before turning 30. You know you have to dream big, but how big is BIG?

Once you have set your goal, say to look as good as Brad Pitt in Fight Club, you will never be completely happy with yourself until you have achieved that goal. This is the motivation that keeps pushing you through hard training sessions and ridicules from other people. You don’t settle until you reach your goal. It defines whether you are the winner or the loser. You cannot live with yourself if you are not doing anything to get closer to your goal.

If person Z makes 10 million dollars before turning 30, would he be happy? Obviously NO. He’d be very unhappy in fact. Even if he makes 80 million dollars, that will still not be enough. His goal is to make 100 million dollars. Anything less than that is a failure to him.

There lies the dilemma of dreaming big. Setting big goals mean raising the standard and expectation of yourself. It should be one of the decisions that change your life. You are setting the benchmarks for everything you do in life. And these benchmarks dictate whether you should be happy or miserable about your performance.

However, most people don’t even dare to dream. They don’t know that they have the ability to achieve every single dream of their childhood. They settle for a normal house, a normal wife, a normal job, and a normal life. They play it safe. But deep down, they will never be completely at peace, because their childhood dreams are still there. They’d look at someone with a beautiful wife, a great job, and a big house, and they feel bad about themselves. They may accept it as their destiny, but they will still think: “Wouldn’t it be nice if I can live like that for one day?”

You use your own measurements in life thus far to assess everything. A dream may be really big for you now, but it may not be so 3 months from now. You don’t even know your potentials/limitations until you have tried to do something seriously for quite some time. For example, when you are 120 pounds, gaining 80 pounds of muscles seems impossible. But once you have gained 30 pounds of muscle to get to 150 pounds, gaining 50 more pounds of muscle is only a matter of time and consistent effort. Will you ever know that if you have not dared to dream big and really try to achieve it?

Setting big dreams is not easy. That is not what you have been taught at school or by your friends and families. But dare to dream, try your best, and you will never regret anything in life.

Note: you may want to check out this book The Magic of Thinking Big. It is an easy read, but it will eliminate any doubts you may have about daring to think big.

RECAP: Dare to set big goals. It’s risky business, but it’s totally worth it. Don’t let your current limitations and measurements in life dictate what you can achieve in the future.