Are You a Doer or a Dreamer?

This week I want to help you identify the differences between dreamers and doers. In my experience in entrepreneurship, as a young professional, and as an educator, I’ve found that there is really one overarching difference between people who accomplish their goals and people who don’t. That is the ability to move beyond the visionary stages of dreaming about what you want, and actually focusing on what it will take to get there.

It’s really simple. Dreamers focus on what the goal is, and doers focus on how they will get it done. Every entrepreneur is a dreamer. Some entrepreneurs are doers. Successful entrepreneurs are dreamers AND doers. It really takes a little of both being visionary, and bringing about action to succeed.

I am going to share with you qualities of both dreamers and doers that I have observed over the past few years. I want you to think about what your day to day actions reflect.

Let’s start with the characteristics of dreamers:

• Dreamers may be consistent in their efforts, but they prefer to throw mud against the wall over and over again hoping something will eventually stick. Dreamers aren’t strategic.

• Dreamers focus too much energy on the fun and pretty stuff, instead of devoting most of their time and energy to the grind.

• Dreamers have a lot of great ideas, but they haven’t achieved focus.

• Dreamers compare themselves to others and romanticize what other people on social media do in business and try to make their lives appear to be the same.

• Dreamers often quit when the going gets tough. If they can’t bring this romanticized dream to life fast enough, they don’t see the reason to keep pushing.

• Dreamers have time to show off on social media, or talk about all the things they want to do/are doing.

Here’s what I know about doers:

• The don’t have time to talk about what they want to do, because they’re too busy getting it done!

• Doers are not the people showing off the boss life on social media 24/7. Doers don’t have time to compare themselves to others, because they are focused, and in their own lane.

• Doers have created clear business objectives. None of their moves are random, because they are taking calculated risks, and when things don’t work out, they know exactly what to tweak to make the result better next time because they are carefully tracking their efforts.

• Doers don’t get discouraged and quit their businesses just because things go wrong, because they have a roadmap and a plan that represents where they want to go and how far they’ve come.

So, are you seeing the difference here between dreamers and doers? It takes a little dreaming to bring excitement to our experiences in business, but we can’t get stuck in this dreaming stage. At some point, we have to decide, and commit to doing the do! By this I mean that we have to create an action plan for getting things done that will move us forward. Dreams are nice, but do you know what you have to do to make it happen?

I hope these tips help you in your journey as an entrepreneur. If you want to connect with other bosses, join my Facebook group called Hustle with Purpose.

I hope you have a great week and continue to move onward, upward, and forward.