Dare to dream
“Above all else, never forget that if you want to do something, you can. All you have to do is set your mind to it…. Life is there for the living!” This was the last paragraph in a fascinating book I read recently by Frenchman Guirec Soudee about his voyage around the world in his 30 foot yacht, Yvinec.
I’ve been around on this planet quite a long time now and after many years of introspection and struggle, I believe I know exactly who I am at last. But it was not always thus. That’s why it was a tonic to read this from a young lad of 21 (when he began the voyage), someone clearly blessed with wisdom far beyond his years.
It’s hard to overstate this achievement because Guirec chose probably the hardest route imaginable. First across the Atlantic from France to the Caribbean, then straight North to the Northwest Passage, which is well inside the Arctic Circle, then South down the West coasts of Canada, the USA and South America to round Cape Horn, once more into iceberg territory, across to the Cape of Good Hope and then back North up the Atlantic Ocean to his home port in Brittany.
What’s more his only companion on this amazing trip was a hen – yes, that’s right, a hen, called Monique, who miraculously remained alive and able to lay fresh eggs even in the sub zero temperatures they encountered at both ends of the earth.
There are, however, one or two additional comments I would add to his assertion you can do whatever you want if you put your mind to it. If your goal is to be meaningful you also have to put your heart and soul into it, otherwise the exercise is meaningless – just an ego trip.
Of course no-one in their right mind would even attempt such an achievement if it wasn’t coming from their heart, but you’d be amazed at the number of people I’ve encountered in my role as a Life Coach, who haven’t searched their hearts before deciding on their goal(s), or who have ignored their hearts because what it tells them is too scary to even contemplate.
You ignore your heart at your peril, for that’s the road towards regrets when it’s too late. But you must also prepare and have a plan if you are to achieve something that everyone else says is impossible; and then you must take action, for without action nothing ever happens. That’s where the scariness can creep in if you let it. Decide honestly if you want it enough and if you do, take the advice of the late Susan Jeffers, “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. Never be in denial of how you feel, but don’t let your fear keep you stuck.
Also of paramount importance, dare to dream. Most of the really serious achievements in our world started with a dream.
If you are an imaginative person you may come up with many dreams, and some ideas are better than others. In such a case you must be sufficiently discriminating to decide which ones to act upon. That’s when you need a vision.
Young Guirec Soudee obviously had a vision of experiencing the world in all its extremes from a small yacht and he decided to act upon something that most people like me would only want to read about.