“Here’s a truth to hold fast to: to live as joyfully and purposefully as you can, with as few regrets as possible, requires a combination of dreaming and doing.”
– Chris Guillebeau, Time Anxiety
Are you on the path to achieving what you want to in life?
If yes, great!
If not, read on. The core reason why might be more basic than you think.
“Everything you could ever hope to achieve in life requires two key components: First, you need to have an idea. Second, you need to make that idea happen. In between the two lies everything that stands in the way – all the constraints and obstacles that impede your progress.”
– Chris Guillebeau, Time Anxiety
“Naturally, most people are better at one of these things than the other,” says Guillibeau, author of Time Anxiety; The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live. “We can call these two groups dreamers and do-ers. Each group has a core strength and a fundamental weakness.”
The Dreamers
“The dreamers suffer from big ideas that seldom come to fruition,” says Guillebeau. “If they don’t have a plan to handle all the distractions that will inevitably come their way, they’ll likely get sidetracked somewhere – and then they feel frustrated. They had a big dream! But they couldn’t pull it off.”
Ring a bell?
The Do-ers
“The do-ers have a very different problem,” explains Guillebeau. “The do-ers tend to be very good at doing the wrong things. They are fastidious. They don’t check their e-mail in the morning. They’re never late to a meeting. They dedicate themselves to quotas and goals.”
“Yet as you might have guessed, they’re frustrated as well,” says the author. “Just for a different reason. They’re too busy ticking off to-do lists to think much about dreaming. They mistake efficiency for effectiveness. Producing becomes the end goal, not the means. They run the risk of getting lost in the details.”
Because this is such an important point, I’m going to take a moment and delve further into explaining the difference between being efficient and being effective (partly because I suspect I need to understand this better myself).
What is the difference between effectiveness and efficiency?
Being effective means doing the right things to achieve a goal i.e. achieving results. Being efficient means doing things right i.e. doing something the best possible way/optimizing the process. So you can be efficient/very good at doing the wrong task…but in the long run, that’s not particularly effective, in terms of helping you reach your bigger goals.
Back to the Dreamers versus the Do-ers…
“The fundamental weakness of each type tends to follow dreamers and do-ers around,” says Guillebeau. “At the end of their lives, the typical dreamer might have some regrets of the road not taken or the big goal that didn’t come to fruition.”
In contrast: “The typical do-er regrets something else,” explains Guillebeau. “Looking back all they see is a bunch of completed checklists.”
We need to be both.
“To live the most fulfilled life,” says the author, “to do more of what you really want and thus reduce your sense of flailing, you need to be good at dreaming (creating ideas) and doing (executing them).”
“Most likely, you’re already pretty good at one of them,” says Guillebeau. “But your limitation with the other is holding you back.”
Interesting.
“In many parts of life,” the author continues, “improving our weaknesses is not always a wise strategy. We tend to be more successful by leveraging our strengths, not by trying to be average in everything. But the “dreaming and doing” combo is one of the exceptions. You simply must learn to know what you want and be willing to take practical steps towards getting it.”
Yup! It’s actually pretty simple…but if it were easy, everybody would be doing it. And they’re not. The world is full of dreamers who just can’t seem to develop the necessary habits to put in the work (the right work), day in and day out.
If this sounds like you, let’s finish up where we began:
“Here’s a truth to hold fast to: to live as joyfully and purposefully as you can, with as few regrets as possible, requires a combination of dreaming and doing.”
– Chris Guillebeau, Time Anxiety
As for me, I have spent a staggering amount of my life in the dreaming phase. I am a dreamer, through and through. But now, at long last, I am really ramping up the amount of time I spend in the doing phase.
And I must admit…doing is way more scary than dreaming. But doing i.e. taking action (especially “inspired action,” which I will explore in an upcoming blog) is, of course, where I am finally starting to see the real-world manifestations of all that dreaming 🙂
“Barrier Removed” inspirational quote cards (30 quotes to help you achieve your dreams) are available in our Etsy shop
