Have You Learned The Alchemist Secret to Realizing your Dreams?

The Alchemist is one of those books that I bought after repeatedly hearing it was a must read—and then it sat unread for a couple years in the must-read pile on my bookshelf with about a dozen other must-read books.  

In March, I took it and most of the pile on vacation with me, figuring if they were the only books I had with me, I’d finally check them off my list. 

In one of life’s coincidences that I suspect isn’t a coincidence at all, March turned out to be exactly the right time for me to read it. 

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho is what I term non-fiction disguised as fiction—a fable-like tale about the four obstacles that block our courage, holding us back from realizing our dreams.  

The first obstacle is being told repeatedly our dream is impossible—and believing it.  The second obstacle might surprise you--it’s love. The idea is that we put our loved ones first and often forfeit our dream rather than neglect them to singularly pursue it. The next two obstacles are both about fear. Third is the understandable fear of failing and Fourth—like love it might surprise you—the fear of realizing our dream—which is often due to guilt or insecurity. 

For me, the timing for reading The Alchemist was so perfect because it coincided with realizing my dream of publishing my first novel, Peace by Piece. You might see publishing as the end of the journey, but to me it presented a new set of obstacles—the dreaded learning curve to social network and market. Here’s what my obstacles sounded like in real life.

·         I'm not a techie, I can't do this computer mumbo-jumbo online marketing stuff  (First obstacle)

·         Even if I could learn to social network and market, it will be so time consuming, I’ll never have time with Jim (Second obstacle)

·         What if I spend all that time social networking and marketing and still no one buys my book? (Third obstacle)

·         What if I’m successful and Oprah, or Ellen, or Katie discover Peace by Piece and tell women to read it? How would my life have to change? 

The Alchemist’s secret is in understanding that in spite of being worthy of our dreams, we all hit obstacles and fall down—and that reaching your dreams is about BELIEVING you will always get up one more time than the number of times you fall. 

Do you believe you are worthy of your dreams? And, what will you do to pick yourself up the next time you fall down?