You had a dream.

You had the end goal clearly pictured in your mind.

You created a detailed plan to achieve the dream and goal.

You executed the plan precisely.

You intelligently deviated from the plan when opportunities presented themselves and when life threw you curveballs.

You worked like hell.

You remained as positive as you could, possessed personal motivation, and had the support of others.

And you achieved successes.

Yet, it still wasn’t enough. Your dream appears to be lifeless and you are now preparing it for eternal rest.

Stop yourself before you toss that last shovelful of earth on top of your dream. Perhaps you can revive it.

First, evaluate the time

Are you being unrealistic about how long it will take to achieve your dream? Sure, there are occasions where dreams can be achieved very quickly. Everyone loves a tale of overnight success, but most of the time it’s not how things go. Your dream may not be lifeless at all, but instead going through a slow patch yet still full of a very long life ahead.

This leads into the next point you should examine:

Assess how close you got or currently are

Those successes you’ve achieved along the way probably helped to get you a lot closer to your dream than you may think. It couldn’t hurt to go just a little bit further and see where you are then. Could it? Keep doing that over and over, taking each of your steps one at a time and with laser focus, and you may end up exactly where your pictured in the first place.

Try harder and/or try with a different plan

The old idiom tells us to “try, try again” but let’s add to that: try harder and try with a different plan. Your dream still stays the same, but perhaps your plan to get there needs adjustments or needs to be completely redesigned. Regroup and try harder and with this new plan.

Ask yourself questions like these:

- What was the reason I gave birth to this dream and went after making it a goal and reality?

- Does anyone else depend on the dream coming to fruition? If so, how could I let them down? How could I let down the people that support me and my dream?

- Why am I giving up? Is there a valid reason? Is it because of an invalid reason like the criticism of others? Am I just burnt out? If I am, do I just need a break?

- What will life be like if I DO give up?

- What will life be like if I DON’T give up?

- Am I holding myself back? If so, what is the reason? Am I afraid of achieving the dream because of the responsibilities it will bring?

- Am I outside my comfort zone? – Achieving dreams requires you to jump far out of that zone.

Understand that your dream will never truly die

Even if you let go and bury your dream six feet under, it’s never going to be truly dead. Your dream will always be in the back of your mind, along with the “what ifs?” like I wrote about in a past article titled “The Vengeance of Unfulfilled Dreams”. Regret is a powerful thing and even as hard as you may try to not live with regrets, there’s no escaping them, especially when you try to bury a dream.

My personal story of reviving a dream

As many of you know, I have been working on writing a novel entitled To Breathe Free. My goal is to publish it as an e-novel on multiple platforms such as the Kindle, iPad, Nook, and more. To bring To Breathe Free to those reading platforms and devices and make it the best possible novel that it can be, I have been attempting to raise funding on Kickstarter.com to hire a freelance book editor. My first attempt on Kickstarter was not a success. I had a powerful dream, I had a clear picture of the goal I wanted to achieve, I had a plan in place which I executed, I seized opportunities, I worked like hell, I remained positive, motivated, and had the amazing support of family, friends, strangers, and all of you. And I did achieve successes on way. Yet it wasn’t enough. My campaign ended and To Breathe Free seemed like a lifeless dream.

But I refused to let it die and now I’m reviving using the same points and questions that I wrote about above. I just relaunched To Breathe Free on Kickstarter with a longer deadline, lower goal, and revised plan to achieve the goal. So far it is going great! I welcome you to please visit the new Kickstarter project page for To Breathe Free here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tobreathefree/to-breathe-free-the-first-great-american-e-novel.

As you may have noticed, Lyved no longer has 3rd party banner ads displayed and I do not earn any money from Lyved. I just enjoy writing for all of you. However, since Lyved has a high amount of traffic, it is expensive to maintain this site and I pay for it out of my pocket. So if you have enjoyed Lyved’s free articles, please consider pledging towards To Breathe Free as it will help offset costs. $4 allows you to receive a copy of To Breathe Free when it is released. $8 pre-orders two copies. And a pledge of $25, allows you to receive two copies of To Breathe Free, a copy for a friend, and a limited edition print greeting card of To Breathe Free‘s book cover along with a handwritten and signed thank you note from me. Even a pledge of $1 is a massive help. And if can’t afford $1, please also consider “liking” the project on Facebook or tweeting it on Twitter. Buttons for both are right under the video on the project page. Or also consider “liking” and tweeting this article, it will be a great way to spread the word while at the same time providing an informative article to others. The buttons to like or tweet this article are just below.

So how ‘bout it? Are you gonna let that dream of yours really die or are you gonna revive it?

Photo by Prashanth dotcompals

As you may have noticed, my Kickstarter campaign for To Breathe Free has ended without reaching its goal of $3,500.

Thank you to all of those who pledged and spread the word about the project. I’m very happy with the accomplishments we’ve achieved.

This is in no way the end. The dream and journey “to breathe free” continues!

Please stay tuned as I’ll be reflecting further about not giving up on dreams in a post that will appear early in May. I will also share in this post what the next step for To Breathe Free is.

Thank you again for all that you’ve given me! I’m very grateful.

Sincerely,

Andrew

Thank you to all those who have helped and read these updates. I greatly appreciate your time and generosity.

We could still use some more help though. A pledge of even just $1 is a huge help. $4 will allow you to receive a copy of To Breathe Free when it is ready for publication. And $8 will buy you two copies of To Breathe Free. If you can’t pledge anything, a tweet, like on Facebook, or share anywhere else is another amazing way to help!

For full details on To Breathe Free, to share, or to make a pledge, please visit here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tobreathefree/to-breathe-free-a-novel

Thank you all again!

-Andrew

Thank you!

Andrew

Thank you so much for reading these updates on my novel project To Breathe Free. The Kickstarter deadline of April 26th is fast approaching and I’m continuing to work hard to get the word out.

To Breathe Free just received a mention on the popular news site International Business Times in an article titled “Why Some Authors Are Turning To Self-Publishing.” If you have a moment, I invite you to please read the article here: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/328029/20120413/ebooks-self-publishing-breathe-free.htm and please consider tweeting it, liking it on Facebook, or sharing in any other way.

Thank you for the continued support!

-Andrew