surviving the liminal space before your dreams come to life
finding magic in the process instead of trying to escape it
One of the questions I’ve received the most by readers when I talk about what it takes to bring your dreams to life, is this: How do I survive that uncomfortable, uncertain space where I’m doing the work but don’t know if my dreams are ever going to come to life? It’s a great question because I don’t know anyone who hasn’t felt that; the discomfort, doubt, and at times total hopelessness that comes and goes, when you’re doing everything you can, but it looks like there’s no movement happening.
I study people who achieve big, incredible things, who manage to go against all odds to bring their wildest dreams to life, because I’m fascinated by the way they think and act. It takes some real mental gymnastics to be able to persevere in the face of countless rejections and doubts; I love to study exactly how people pull themselves back up, again and again, a thousand times until it works – when 99% of people would have given up after a reasonable amount of time and decided it’s probably just not happening for them. Is it almost guaranteed that it will work out as long as you persevere for long enough? A lot of stories and examples do tend to suggest so, even though of course we only hear about the successful ones.
When you’re trying your best, making all possible moves towards your dreams, but you don’t yet have all the signs you need that it is working, what do you do? How do you keep yourself going without losing hope and motivation?
One of the things I’ve learned is that if you have big, ambitious dreams, and you’re determined to bring them to life, one of the most difficult but most essential things is to develop some nearly delusional self-belief and perseverance. And alongside that, maybe equally important, is an ability to recognize that the process itself, the uncomfortable liminal space of uncertainty and hard work, is full of magic if you allow yourself to see it, and to be in it.
The mistake most of us make is that we’re way too focused on getting to the end result, so we keep trying to escape the actual process that is getting us there. We see the process as a sign of lack because we’re not at the end yet, when what it really is, is a sign that we’re actually inside the journey we’ve been looking forward to.
The moments where your dreams finally come to life are just that: they’re moments. They are brief moments of deep happiness, excitement and achievement, that mark that you did it – and then they’re over. But you don’t want to miss the whole process that got you there. I’m learning that this is where most of the magic is, if we stop trying to escape it. Most of us are guilty of constantly highlighting all the places we have not yet reached, all the things we haven’t yet brought to life that we’re desperately aiming for, and we forget to genuinely enjoy being in the process that will get us there.
The process of doing your creative work can be so much more enjoyable than the moments of praise your work will get. Writing your book can be more fun and fulfilling than the moment when your book finally gets published. The process of striving, creating, and wholeheartedly hoping, of pouring all your passion into something, is where so much meaning can be found. It would be a shame to miss out on how rewarding the journey can really be because you’re too busy trying to rush past it to get to the end.
When you’re not seeing all the movement you would like yet, when you’re not sure whether what you’re doing is going to work out, remind yourself that this is where you once hoped to be: in the process of working on this, of being so close that it’s an actual possibility.
How can you make the process even more enjoyable? How can you be in it as fully and wholeheartedly as you can? Sometimes all it takes is allowing yourself to romanticise the process more, to stop trying to rush past it, and instead do everything in your power to be more present in it. When you do small things that can allow you to find the joy in the process again, you detach a little more from the outcome – it stops feeling like a matter of life or death whether it happens now or a bit later, because you’re genuinely loving the journey of trying to bring it to life.
What a privilege it is to even be so close that it’s a possibility at all.
And don’t let yourself forget the power of perseverance and persistence – when you wonder if it’s really worth it, remember that we have plenty of reasons to believe it is. How many stories of rejection and persistence have we heard that we forget when it’s easier to doubt and lose hope? The Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera did not sell a single art piece until she was 89. Harrison Ford was told he would never make it in movies after years of rejections, that there was no future for him in the industry – he had to work as a carpenter to pay his bills but persevered alongside that, staying in the game long enough for him to end up being cast in Star Wars and transforming the rest of his life. Countless authors that have gone on to sell millions of copies of their books, have bags full of rejection letters that they just ignored and kept going.
Perseverance works, hope and self-belief work; because they give you a reason and a motivation to find more joy in the process, instead of trying to escape it. The combination of all these things together is what brings the odds in your favour.
If you’re in that process and you’re not sure whether you should keep going or change direction/quit, maybe these will help – on rejection, and rewiring limiting beliefs:
This is all so true! I'm currently changing some habits to move toward my personal goals, and I've been surprised by how much more enjoyable the steps can be than I thought. Finding the joy in the process is also helping me to get even more self-trust.
thank you for writing this. I always struggle to stick by my goals because i’m afraid of the end result and i really try to look at others who accomplished their dreams and I try to understand their mindset 🤍