For as long as I can remember I’ve had dreams. My mind seems to naturally conjure future visions of how amazing things could be.

This is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it’s a powerful imaginal capacity. It underpins key parts of my mystical and shamanic work. It allows me to understand and see other people’s visions (great for coaching people). It gives possibility to life.

On the other hand, it’s easy to conjure the picture of something, and way harder to actually create it here in the 3D. This can lead to a habit of living in my magical imagination, rather than doing the work in the physical world.

Therefore, I’ve spent many years studying and experimenting with different approaches to “realizing your dreams” or “reaching your goals”.

One of the most important conclusions I’ve drawn is that this endeavor is best seen as a journey — not just as a nice metaphor, but because it most closely resembles the actual territory.

So, if like me, you can struggle to bridge the big picture vision, with the small practical steps, this is for you.

How on earth do I do this?

The voices start chattering. All the worries and challenges spiral into an imagined nightmare.

“It’s too hard.”

“I’m not good enough”.

This kind of stuff normally comes up when I’m thinking about the thing I always think about. How to step deeper into the arena and dare to boldly show my hand. I’m holding an image of a glorious potential. As I conjure it my soul and heart hum to its tune.

But today, like other days, the negative voices seem to be winning out.

We all know that they’re not to be trusted as the authorities they profess to be. We all wish they’d pipe down and get in their place. They feed the doubt.

“How on earth do I do this?”

Which is just a stone’s throw from “I can’t do this.”

So let’s map this out. For as I said, I’ve come to believe that these things are not simply metaphorical journeys. The structure of the journey is embedded in the way our body-mind works with this stuff. I think this is because they both have the same deeper root, the transformational cycle from which they’re both modelled.

Here’s a way of looking at it.

Corners you can’t see past

I see a future vision, of how my life could be. It comes to me in a moment of calm perhaps, or a heightened state of consciousness.

Insight. Seeing.

I’m inspired—the vision lights something up and I feel a bubbling excitement.

Then, perhaps the next day, I sit down to start working on it. And I realize how big or hard it feels. So I stop. From my limited perspective, it looks like it’s a long way off, in fact it’s so far off I can’t even see it. The vision euphoria starts to wane, and the quest seems more difficult and less appealing.

If I were to zoom out and see like the eagle sees, I would be able to see a winding pathway that leads from my starting location all the way through the landscape to the location of my vision. In fact, I might see an entire root system of pathways, spreading out from here to there.

Now when I zoom back in again, and view this through the eyes of my human self, I see a forest of trees before me. I remember the route I saw from above, and now I see a pathway running out in front of me. But I can still only see so far. At some point the pathway bends and I can’t see past it.

I can’t see past the corner.

Once again, this is a metaphorical truth embedded in the life journey. It’s the way our human mind makes sense of travelling through time and space.

The corner is the future location that you can’t see past.

For example, “I know I’ve got to get on a plane and go to this thing. But I truly have no idea what to do when I get there.”

That’s the point that you can’t see past.

The only way to navigate the journey is to take the steps along the pathway, until you reach the corner, at which point your view will open up once again and you can work out your new heading.

The reason the vision you seek can feel so far away and so impossible, is that it lies around 11 corners.

I can’t see past the 1^st corner, let alone the 11^th.

I can’t see it, because the person who walks around that 11^th corner is different to the one standing here. He’s the product of having walked around the preceding 10 corners. And been changed by each of them.

So, the gameplan in its first instance, is to focus on the steps, and not the corners.

Steps along the path

Pick the direction (which implies the destination) and see the pathway. See the steps that follow on from one another, and end up at the corner you can’t see past.

I go in a North-Easterly direction, get across that muddy river, up the bank on the other side to the tree line, then I can see how to tackle the big hill.

Or, I’ve got to finish the copy drafts, find some new images, get some feedback, work it over again, upload everything to WordPress then I’ll be able to see how to announce this thing.

I know enough about the direction and path that I can take. I know the steps that get me to the next corner. And then it’s a case of take those steps. The first. Then another. Then another. Taking consistent steps is much more important than the size of them.

I learned a profound lesson from Jordan Peterson about this. The steps you commit to must be small enough that you can actually do them (over ambition raises the risk you in fact do nothing). The telltale sign of an appropriately small step is that you feel kind of stupid aiming for it.

“Like really, that’s all I have in me?”

Jordan describes a man who he worked with many years before whose life was a big mess. His first goal was to tidy his room (which was also a big mess – go figure). That was his corner – having a tidy room. And his first step? All he could manage for the first week, was to take out the vacuum cleaner, put it by his door, and look at it every day.

That was the first step for him. The one he could take and did take.

The work of the manifester

The work is to keep seeing the next step, and taking it even when it seems stupid, and especially when you feel stupid for struggling with it.

Even one step each day adds up to something bigger than you might think. As the seemingly meagre rhythm stabilizes, you find your groove and start to notice the sensation of momentum.

This is when you feel like you’re being pulled along (not simply pushing yourself forward). Like a river current that adds its power to your movement.

And before too long you’ve reached the first corner. And then you’re around the next few corners, and things look quite different.

So, if the vision feels too big, or the challenge too great, and you don’t know how on earth you’ll ever get there…just head for the first corner. Take the steps, especially when you feel a bit stupid for lowering your targets.

Trust that the one who keeps taking steps, is the one that makes it to the next corner. And trust that the one who has made it there, will be equipped get to the next.

Until you realize you’ve reached your destination. And you can enjoy it for those glorious moments, until the next journey calls your attention once again.