Are you designing your life, or are you letting someone design your life?
I am talking about your goals and dreams. Have you achieved them? Are you constantly thriving to reach them?
Our Goals and dreams are constantly changing as we grow and mature, like building our bucket List. It is important that we chase our goals, not someone else’s goals of us. That seems obvious, right? Remember when we were kids? What were our goals back then? To Impress our Parents? We would’ve done anything to make our parents proud of us. We would take music lessons, join sports teams, take additional classes and do well in school. Were these our goals or were they our Parent’s goals of us? How many of you enjoyed those music lessons, those sports that you knew you suck at but did anyway and how many of you have taken those extracurricular classes!
I did not come from an educated family. My family immigrated from Hong Kong to Vancouver, Canada when I was only 3 years old. My brother was 6. My father was a butcher at a Chinese BBQ Store in Chinatown and my mother was a homemaker. They never learned English and all their hopes were on us. We had this invisible, incredible pressure from them, to be better then them, and to be what they are not. We were told, over and over again, that we had to do well in school in order to get a good job and move up in life. We must get straight A’s, because anything else is an “Asian Fail”. Lucky I was never put into music lessons or Sports teams because our parents couldn’t afford the costs. Our Goal was laid out to us, loud and clear, to do well in school.
When we got into High School, it becomes an all new ball game!
Doing well in school was not enough. We wanted to be the ‘Cool Kid’ because they are respected, well-liked in school. Once again our Goals was dictated by those around us. We tried to do what everyone else were doing because we wanted to to fit in. We took courses that our friends took, we did extracurricular activities to be with that ‘Cool’ girl or guy. It was never what we really wanted in our hearts. Just what we are expected to do. My friends had all the cool toys: their 10 speed Bikes, Records, Walkmans, and hip clothing. We grew up in the 80’s after all. Yes Bikes only had 10 speeds back then, and records and Walkmans would be equivalent to MP3’s and Ipod, smartphones. My goal was to have what they have. So I started working at the age of 14. I had to keep up even though my family could not afford to. I have to find my own way.
But we also have our own goals and dreams, don’t we? 
From the posters on our walls, the books that we read. I had exotic car posters and Movie star posters. I secretly dreamed to be ‘uber’ successful and famous someday. Some of us dreamed to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, race car drivers and become millionaires. What happened to those dreams?
During college things got really crazy.
Most of us thought we knew what we wanted as a career and we must study for the next 4-8 years in order to qualify for a job we will be working for the rest our lives. Did you get to choose what you really wanted to study? Or were you influenced by your parents and friends?
According to statistics, about 60% of people who graduated with a College degree does not use what they learned.
Do you feel like you are living your worst nightmare? Trapped because you took the wrong career path? Living to fulfill somebody else’s goals? There are Dream Killers that take the form of Teachers, Boyfriend/girlfriend, friends, parents, and bosses that are always telling us what we can or can’t do. We got so beaten up , most people give up and settle with the life and give up on their dreams.
I did not graduate from College.
My parents wanted me to be a doctor but their dreams shattered when I dropped out after second year. I dropped out, not because I was lazy, but because I did not believe that my education would help me fulfill my goals and dreams. Everyone, including my parents, my girlfriend’s parents, and my own close friends told me to go back to College or I will not be successful. Most of my friends Graduated and went onto to their jobs, I chose a different path.
At 21, with the support of my girlfriend, I started my first business.
I realized that it was my dream to have my own successful business. For the next 24 years, we’ve been through ups and downs in our business, but now we have built 4 successful businesses and helping many others to do so. I ran these businesses with my wife, at home, at our own time, on our own terms.
We designed our own lives and our own lifestyle.
Are you living the life that you designed? Or are you living a life designed by someone else? Are you living your dreams or your nightmares? Do you want to live the life that you designed? Start by believing in yourself. Stop listening to other people’s opinions about you. Start building your list of goals, your bucket list in life. Put the easy ones first and the more ambitious ones further down the list. Shoot for the sun and you will land on the moon. Check each goal off your bucket list as you achieve them. It is like climbing a staircase one step at a time. Just focus on that next step. Soon you will Live the Life that you designed.
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