Realism Needs to Partner With Dreams

16 September 2022

By Linda Ferguson

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw

Somehow we have come to see realism and dreams as opponents. Most of the time, we talk as though being reasonable and practical are so important that even the goals we set must be specific and measurable and limited. But that’s not how the highest achievers think.

High achievers know that their dreams and realism are partners that work together to make exploration and achievement possible. They know that the only way to get beyond a limit is to stop believing it’s the only possible reality. Dreams help us look past the edges of what we know now to imagine there is more to the world, and more to us.

Excellence in any field depends on doing what is possible consistently, and then stretching what is possible. Dreams provide the incentive to innovate and the resilience to do the practice until something new becomes possible.

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