Shoot for the Moon

It’s one thing to talk about goals and plans, but there’s a difference between discussing something fairly straight-forward that you plan to do, and talking about The Dream.

You can talk about how you’re going to write a 400-word article, or how you hope, by the end of the year, to have an article published in a magazine, or will have finished your novel. Having plans with reasonable goals is good.

But sometimes, you have to shoot the moon. You have have to reach for the stars. You have to go for the gold. You have to pick the cliche of choice and just … go for it.

Dream the big dream.

We’ve had wise and brilliant people telling us for centuries that we are only limited by our own imaginations. External circumstances can affect us, sure, but we only truly fail when we accept that we have failed.

Or when we haven’t challenged ourselves at all.

So, today, on the 40th anniversary of Mankind walking on the moon, stop to think … what big dreams do you have?

Are you thinking about writing an article? Why not dream about it being published by Time, People, or Smithsonian?

Are you thinking about writing a book? Why not dream about it being on the NYT Bestseller list?

Are you thinking about starting your own business? Then dream about it being so wildly successful that you’ve just bought two homes and are turning clients away.

As President Kennedy said in his speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962:

We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not only because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.

This is a time of challenges for all of us, but ultimately, our only limits are the ones we allow ourselves to be limited by.

There is no dream too big to be dreamed.

There are no wishes too big to wish.

We may not be able to accomplish everything we hope for–world peace, prosperity for everyone, an end to disease and suffering–but they are worth fighting for. Dreaming the Big Dream is what makes us human. It makes us visionary. It makes us limitless.

On this day, on this anniversary of the day that mankind actually walked on the moon–something inconceivable for most of our history–take a moment to ask yourself: If I could do anything at all, what would I do?

And then? Ask yourself what you need to do to make that happen … and do it!

Reach for the stars.