Imagine carrying your dreams like seeds in your pocket. How many actually get planted? In reality, many people live with their pockets full of dreams and die never really pursuing any of them. As a result, many live with regret, passionless living, depression, and boredom.

I often speak on the value of pursuing dreams because in the financial industry, we often deal with helping people pursue their dreams, or recover their lost dreams. Perhaps it’s starting a new business, saving for a new home, college education, getting out of debt, or countless other desires.

It’s truly a rewarding job – to help people pursue their dreams, but in the end, it takes hard work, sacrifice, commitment, and resolve to make dreams happen.

Because of this, dreams are either neglected all together, or they are seen as too difficult and never pursued.

An effective tool to combat this I like to share and mention in my book Full Disclosure is encouraging others to list at least 7 reasons why they want to pursue their specific dream(s). If they can’t list seven reasons, the dream is more like a wish – it doesn’t possess the intensity to compel action. However, when there are at least 7 reasons to pursue a dream, there is also deep motivation and desire which helps fuel action.

Often times, dreams that serve to only benefit ourself come up short, but when our dream provides a greater good and is geared to help others – powerful motivation erupts. It just requires a little spark to get it started.

Our dream(s)/desires may in fact come from God, and must always be surrendered to Him. This can be very difficult because patience, prayer, and persistence is required which can be a challenging balance to maintain for those of us who like to “get things done” (Acts 2:17).

This is where Planning is very helpful. For we just don’t plant seeds just anywhere. For example, we must first determine the proper soil, sunlight, water, and other conditions.

Likewise, for our dreams to sprout, we can’t be haphazard with how we plant them. We too must plan, study, and prepare. If we do, we discover one of the greatest thrills in life – actually removing our “dream seeds” from our pocket, planting them, nurturing them, and entrusting them to God to bear the fruit in His time.