Is your life filled with accomplishments and breaks to enjoy them as you ascend to your ultimate dream goal?

OR is your life contained in a maze where you follow one or the other of twists and turns — with the same monkey wrench just when you oh so need that break?

Dream goals are dream goals because we see them in the future, often at the end of a road of trials and tribulations. They are actually the sparks, out there, that keep calling to us. But the danger in never seeing them is when we can’t see past the forest, time elapses, and we let the light at the end of the tunnel go dim, lost, or rather we get lost, we close ourselves off.

Hitting our dream goals doesn’t have to be that difficult. Life can be filled with accomplishments and even breaks along the way to enjoy the journey.

The trick is to fashion that journey in a way that makes it one of careful planning, calculated risks, creativity and innovation where even if you move one step forward and two steps back, you are so on purpose and hitting your dream goals.

Here are five strategies to fashion your life to quickly hit your dream goals. You will ascend to your ultimate dream goal while enjoying accomplishments and breaks along the way if you are consistent with these.

1. Live Faith

Don’t just have faith. Live faith. When you take actions that prove your belief, you convince the Universe and your unconscious brain that you really believe in what you are doing, where you are going and who you are becoming. You prove that you aren’t off to do some new hobby. This is serious. This is life.

And so, take action as if your life depended upon it. Your dream goal is in your heart for a reason. I believe it’s the Universe wanting to work through you. Signal to the Universe that you, too, take your mission seriously. So, take action as if what you are pursing is with absolute certainty yours. It is yours!

2. Surround Yourself with the Successful

Top leadership experts, such as James Canfield, swear by this, and for good reason. Take a look around you at the five closest people to you in your life. What goal are you pursuing? Whether it’s a happy and loving marriage, a successful on purpose business or an organization making real-world change. Whatever it is, if the five closest people to you are not [yet] in the league of what you want, you are not going to get to where you want to be.

Bring people on your journey with you who are living the life of your dreams already. That means they are a few steps ahead of you or already there. You must uplevel yourself!

3. Live in Present Time

One of the big mistakes people make is pursuing a dream goal mentally placed way off in the distance. Yes, in our present “time” you don’t yet ‘see’ past the forest. BUT you’ll have to play with your unconscious a little here to make leaps forward to hitting it.

Beyond living faith, mentally place the image of your desired goal in the present as if it’s here and yours right now. Reality is relative as is time. Reflect on that. Now, determine that you are living your dream goal, feeling it, enjoying it, smelling and breathing it. Notice how you start making decisions a little differently. If you can notice that, now you are creating that new reality by having shifted your consciousness. You are making quantum leaps!

4. Get Mentored

Get mentored by people who have been there and done it. These are people who have maybe made a ton of mistakes getting through the maze of their life’s journey. But they’ve come out with enormous wisdoms to readily share and they walk their talk. My mentor has been in my place. She had some of the same/similar goals. She had the same/similar challenges. She’s already in my head before I speak. She gets me. So, strategically she zones in on the very specific areas I need to work on if I am serious about my dream goals.

Right now I am working with her on one specific goal keeping in mind that how I do things in pursuing that one goal is instantly impacting another goal, and the way I show up in how I pursue that one, too. When you work with a mentor who gets you and knows your weakest/shadow/blind spots, you’re not just hitting one goal anymore. You are hitting several goals while going after that dream goal!

5. Embrace Change, Tweak and Blaze

Along the way, stop, reflect, evaluate your progress make notes, and recreate. Each time you uplevel, each time you go two steps back, wherever you are, remember this: life changes. It’s okay if you’re lost for a while. It’s okay to not figure it all out immediately. It’s actually great to be in chaos for a while because from chaos you create. You are on a journey and you are one element, one ingredient, in the creation of that beautiful thing — along the journey. That beautiful thing is your dream goal but — being on purpose — it’s the Universe’s just as much as yours.

Make changes to work smartly with opportunities that present themselves. Opportunities will present themselves through chaos that you didn’t see when you first charted course. Cut the strings to things that hold you back. What feels right now will likely be different to what felt correct before. Tune into the present. Do it differently if you’re guided to. And remember, too, if you’re creating something new, you are charting new territory that a mentor can only hold you accountable for persisting through. Embrace your own journey. Blaze your own trail!

Originally published at medium.com