“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
While pondering my future, as I frequently do, I asked myself the ever-evolving and hard-to-answer question, “What is my dream?”
This question came to mind when listening to an old podcast on Spotify called Wake Up / Wind Down.
The host, Niall Breslin, with his deep Irish accent and mellow voice, sprinkles bits of wisdom twice a day, after waking up and before winding down.
You can imagine that soft voice during a daily wind-down:
“Use the senses to deepen your meditation: the smells, the sounds, the feeling of the muscles relaxing and settling in the body.”
“Allow the mind and body to rest. To prepare for a new day tomorrow.”
Taking on a project to not just have a twice-daily meditation practice, but to publish it to the world is incredible. The amount of obstacles you must move past to keep it up!
I have mad respect for Niall, to make not one but two episodes a day, three minutes for the wake-up and nine minutes for the wind-down.
In his own words, it was his way of keeping himself accountable to a daily meditation and reflection practice.
Distraction, depression, worry, and anxiety were his obstacles to realizing his dream.
Having kept his ambitious goal for over two years, recording most of the short episodes from his bedroom, Niall worked towards his goal of owning his own recording studio.
And now he does, recording all kinds of projects and continuing his podcast journey with the Where’s the Mind Podcast.
Personally, I have held an eight-year morning meditation practice, and occasional evening one, often tuning into the Wind Down episodes to settle into a good night’s rest.
My obstacles were pretty much the same: restlessness, tiredness, contemplation, and rumination.
I discovered one night during meditation, right before midnight, that the many obstacles, both in and out of the mind, had not stopped me from achieving my goal that day.
I had discovered a thing that was so captivating, so helpful, that I had wanted to return to it no matter what.
I later tried to apply different habit-forming techniques to other things, like recording a podcast each day, but never kept it going. It did not captivate me enough.
We must desire to identify with a habit or else it won’t become one.
After years of work, I can identify now as a meditator, an athlete, and a writer because I meditate, work out, and write each day.
Those obstacles were no different than a storyline, created in my mind and fueled by more thinking, pulling me away from my dream.
So, searching within for my dream, I found a place that kept beckoning me to return.
A place that is filled with wonder, awe, and inspiration.
A place that, between pages bound by glue and heat, changed the way I saw the world.
A place that I found possible to create ever since I was given a journal by a mentor of mine years ago.
That mentor said, “Take these blank pages and fill them with your very soul”.
My dream then was to become a writer, to express myself in one of the oldest mediums in the world: words.
My dream has not changed but evolved, knowing that making something natural, like writing, takes immense time and energy.
Looking back, there have been many obstacles to this goal, and there still are many today, but I am continually realizing this dream with every word I write.
Listening to Niall realize his dream of becoming a podcaster simply by recording his voice assured me that the hard work would pay off “one day”, or I should say it would feel like “one day”.
In reality, what cultivates over days, weeks, months, and years is what creates a “day” that you get a book published, a record made, or a chiseled body. A “day” that you realize you’ve made it.
And on that day, the real work begins.
On that day, the obstacles are a lot less frightful.
