"You May Say I'm A Dreamer, But I'm Not The Only One" | Motivational Monday

Last week I turned 24, and I had to stop and think "wow I'm actually 24". Life has literally gone past so quickly, and let's face it, as you get older, your next birthday comes around a lot sooner. Once you get another year older, you tend to stop and think about where your life is going. I'm not sure whether it's a good or bad thing, but I am such a huge dreamer. I get an idea in my head and I just want to do it. When people say to me they want to do certain things, I always say the same thing "why don't you do it"? A piece of advice I tend to ignore myself.

There are so many things I want to do, travel the world, move to LA, start my own fashion company; all things I can actually do, so what's stopping me?

A mixture of failure and a lack of self confidence. I'm also too worried about the worse case scenario; these crazy ideas I get in my head which always make it seem so bad, I'm not even willing to take the risk. Like I mentioned above, after my birthday I had to stop and think where am I going with my life, and the simple answer to that question is not very far. I don't want to get older and feel like I've wasted my life away. I want it to be filled with stories, both good and bad, of things I've experienced in my life, and I think that's when it hit me, I need to stop being so scared and just go for it.

A quote I love is "if your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough". The reason you get scared of situations is because you're passionate about it and want it so much, the idea of not getting there is frightening, but sometimes being scared can completely stop you. The situations I want to put myself in are not life threatening nor illegal. I might try something and completely fail, but that's not always a bad thing. Sometimes you need that failure to push you towards something more. You know that good old-fashioned quote, "When one door closes another opens," I think you need to see the positives in any situation to make you run straight through that new door. Hard work and passion are two traits I'm so glad I have, it's the determination and self-belief I need to bring into it. So how am I going to do this?

My friends are always coming to me for advice, and these are the things I'm always telling them:

1. You've got to be proactive. It's very rare something will just be given to you. There's nothing better than working hard and seeing the rewards.
2. Surround yourself with positive and motivated people, they will push you to your goal.
3. Make life goals, but don't give yourself a time limit. Somethings take longer than you think, and you might go around the path a different way.
4. Don't be afraid of failure. It's the people who pick themselves back up and go for it that succeed.
5. Do what you love and are passionate about. Passion takes up a huge part of succeeding.
6. Don't ever let anyone tell you-you can't. No one can choose your path in life except you.
7. Dream. Dream. Dream. Run towards the life you've always imagined.

As I am writing this, I'm thinking about my own life and I'm not feeling (too) scared; I'm feeling excited. There are so many adventures and challenges I'm going to be facing going forward with my life, but these experiences are what shape your life. A year has 365 days, even if you had to make a new decision about your life for a quarter of that, that 91 days your life can change. I don't want to say I want to be living there and doing this in a years time, I just want to gain that level of self-confidence and determination that is going to help me get towards where I want to be. Even if I reach the age of 80 and I never had my own fashion business, and I only managed to visit 3 counties in the world, If I know I spent every day working hard, being happy and positive, I guess my so-called "failure" would have created a life filled with adventures, challenges and experiences.

I hope this helps someone, even if it's just one person. I think once you get over that initial fear, the world seems a lot more of an exciting place.

I love reading quotes, so I've put together some of my favourites in a Pinterest board (again with the pinning) here. Let me know in the comments below what your dreams in life are, and any advice you'd give to people on getting there.