Forget Your Dream—and Obtain It

By Peter Nevland - Dec 22 , 2009

What have you most hoped to become? Mogul of your own publishing empire? World famous, published author?

You can Google shovelfuls of blogs and websites related to pursuing your dreams. Most of them provide encouraging quotes to get you started. The carrot they want you to chase is usually your own happiness and sense of fulfillment. However, if you focus on your own happiness and fulfillment in pursuing that dream, you’ll never get there. If you did, you wouldn’t know what to do next.

Books, as in every other business, don’t get produced or sold out of pity. Publishers need to see a financial incentive in order to take a risk on fulfilling your dream. That means, who cares about your subject matter? How many of them are there? Do they care deeply enough to spend a great deal of money? If an aspiring author delivers the book that fulfills his or her dreams, but has no potential audience, even if it’s the best book ever written, no one will ever publish it.

If a publisher only puts out books that they care about to fulfill their own dreams, they’ll go bankrupt. Look at the stories of any book publisher that’s achieved any type of lasting presence. Random House, Penguin Books, and Simon & Schuster, just to name a few, all began by either re-publishing already established books or books for which an obvious market existed. They catered to the interests of others in order to pursue their own goals.

A few years ago, Christmas approached after a year of heavy, performance related touring. I didn’t have any money to buy Christmas presents. Memories of times when my fun-loving creativity had been misunderstood filled my brain. I knew I would have to tell the stories of my struggles to a family eager for news. My head drooped with the reminder that I would arrive home once again as the only, single, childless member of my siblings. To top it off, my brother, the closest to me in age and relationship, stayed in Austin to spend Christmas with his wife’s family. My fears threatened to turn a happy holiday into a time of depression.Thankfully, I didn’t go home with that attitude. “What if I don’t try to hide my outgoing, fun-loving self and just focus on encouraging everyone else this Christmas?” I thought.

My brain shot back a schizophrenic response, “But you’ll be vulnerable, and if they don’t like that it’ll hurt, especially with how tough this year’s been. Just wait for them to show some care for you first.”

“But I don’t want my happiness to depend on their actions, and at least I’ll know that I lived without fear,” I concluded.

On Christmas Eve, my sisters, their husbands and their kids gathered together at my parents’ house like every year for a night of feasting and presents. Before the meal, my dad asked me to pray, like he does often. The idea popped into my head to shout out the prayer as loud as I could, being exuberantly thankful. Right as I began a couple laughs erupted, but after a few more seconds, a few simultaneous shouts had joined me. By the time I finished my shouting prayer, everyone in my family was shouting together our thanksgiving for a good year. We continued the fun into singing Christmas songs together and opening presents, celebrating each other like never before.

At the end of the evening, my face beamed with an unstoppable smile as I prepared to go to bed. More presents would fill my stocking during my sleep, but they didn’t matter much to me. My giving and the response of my family swelled in my heart. I remembered why I started pursuing the path of creativity and my dreams in the first place: to bring joy to the lives of others.

In the abridged version of “The Last Lecture” that Randy Pausch delivered on Oprah a couple years ago, he argued for enjoying life for the sake of others so that you don’t have to worry about the fulfillment of your own dreams. “…if you live your life the right way… …the dreams will come to you,” he eloquently said to a teary eyed crowd.

I’m not saying anything new. It’s the same stuff that we hear should be the spirit of Christmas every year. “Whoever seeks to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it,” a grown, manger-born baby said.

Set your eyes on a goal other than yourself, the kind of people you want to impact, the topic you want to revolutionize. You’ll build a following of people ready to ensure the success of your books or publishing empire. Plus, you’ll find much more enjoyment in their smiling faces and forget about whether you feel fulfilled. You might even become more than the person you dreamed to be.