Planning, Dreaming and Reality
By Matt - Wednesday, October 17th, 2007
As part of life we make plans and set goals that take us to our dreams. This is especially important if you’re trying to come up with things like business plans or get yourself out of debt or even run a marathon. Dreaming can be a big part of this since we always want to get to what we dream up; unfortunately sometimes our dreams and reality don’t mesh together. This isn’t to say that you need to limit your dreams; that’s where the planning part comes in. Your dreams can be sky high but your plans need to have some basis in reality or you’re just setting yourself up for disappointment.
Personal finance
Planning and finances goes hand in hand; you need to plan out your money and make sure that you have enough to pay your bills, feed yourself and get yourself some of the niceties in life. Even from a very limited point of view you have to do some planning when it comes to your money. The aspect of money is also important when you dream up your ideal lifestyle and all of the toys and gadgets that you want to have. The plasma TV hanging on the wall and the Porsche in the driveway unfortunately cost a lot of money and although you can dream both of them up when you’re making minimum wage you can’t actually afford them. Reality comes in and puts a damper on your dreams sometimes but it doesn’t have to; here comes planning to the rescue. With some solid planning that’s grounded in reality you can get those dreams even if they might be of the sky high variety.
The other thing to consider when it comes to dreaming and reality in the realm of personal finance is the fact that if you see the big screen TV on the wall and simply go buy it the debt is something that you have to deal with. A lot of people don’t consider the results of their actions and they find themselves up to their eyeballs in debt. This is reality rearing its ugly head to let you know that you didn’t plan very well.
Business planning
Personally I’ve been investigating a couple business ideas lately including the idea of buying an existing business. My mind whirs and whirs with the potential results and if I was a cartoon character I’m sure I would have dollar signs in my eyes. The reality in this situation is that yes there is a lot of potential in the items that I’m dreaming up and the goal of having all the money that my dreams come up with is possible but I would be fool hardy to try any of these ideas without some solid planning. The planning is what will make those dreams truly achievable and it will be the stepping-stones to getting to the goals and dreams.
The balance
I’m a bit of a dreamer; I tend to come up with an idea and then let it run wild in my head cooking up all sorts of crazy plans around it. For me this applies to pretty much anything regardless of what it is. From this I’ve learned that the balance between dreaming and reality is the planning. You can come up with some crazy plans but if your plans mesh with reality and are realistic then you’re more likely to succeed than if you simply dreamed the idea and tried getting there right away. Planning and realistic planning to be specific can get you to the bigger dreams as well since it lets you break down your goals into manageable pieces.
Without the balance between dreams and reality you might find that the two never meet leaving you disappointed. Most people who’ve achieved great things didn’t just get there; they had lots of steps along the way that were planned out that did.
This entry is filed under Budgeting and Planning, Commentary.
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