When you have big dreams, people will often warn you about how unrealistic they are.
“What if you fail?” They’ll say. “You’ll have nothing to fall back on.”
With best intentions, they try to be a good friend/father/funspoiler and make you understand that there’s a vchance you’re simply not cut out to become the world-class performer you think you are. And that it’s better to invest your time in a “secure” job that you can tolerate. Because what if you fail?
I have to admit that on first sight it seems like all evidence supports their concerns.
It’s easy to get inspired the lucky 1% who defied the odds and became famous or successful (not the same thing) and then think you can do it too. But what about the other 99% you never see? The people who ended in the gutter and don’t even have the money to promote “de-motivational videos” that tell you to not try do what they did?
Don’t you think there’s a much bigger chance you belong to that larger, unnoticed group of people who are not good enough and destined to fail?
And if you know this, wouldn’t it be better to throw the towel in the ring right now? To opt for a less exciting but more predictable career while you degrade your dreams to “just a hobby” instead of wasting all those precious years?
Those are indeed very reasonable thoughts to have. I mean, you should have them if it was true that 99% of the people who try, fail.
But where does that percentage come from? Does anyone know?
A recent study has proven that 67.9% of all statistics you read in blog posts, books or articles are completely random and made-up. Including the study I just mentioned.
And let’s face it, “99%” is just a “perfect” number that sounds good to intimidate people with when you’re worried that they’re about to make stupid decisions. Which you cannot ever know for sure are stupid unless you actually tried them yourself and wasn’t pleased with the results).
But if that number isn’t accurate, then realistically speaking, how big is the chance your dreams end up being nothing but one big failure?
Probably around 0%.
Don’t believe me? Let’s look at the facts.
Out of all the roughly 7 billion people living on this planet, how many of them have tried to make their dreams come true and didn’t succeed?
Zero.
There is no one alive who failed to make their dreams come true.
Yes, there are some dead people who died before they succeeded. But I don’t think they feel bad about it, since they’re dead.
There are, however, a lot of people who gave up on their dreams. But there is not one single person on this planet who failed and lives to tell it.
Some may believe they failed, but they actually belong to the group who gave up when the circumstances were too much for them to bear.
Because it is, in reality, impossible not to succeed in making your dreams come true if you keep trying. There are only 3 possibilities, listed here from most fun to most stupid:
Possibility #1: Succeed
Possibility #2: Give Up
Possibility #3: Die
Which option you pick is, of course, entirely up to you.
But personally, I kinda like the taste of the first one best ?