Live What You Love - Follow Your Heart and D.R.E.A.M.

Everyone makes mistakes. Still, we often cringe, become embarrassed, or even allow ourselves to be defeated when we make a mistake. But mistakes are really opportunities to grow. As children, we make mistakes all the time - and that's how we learn! Before we ever learn to really walk well, we have to fall on our bottoms hundreds of times.

But somehow as we grow older, the stakes seem higher. And instead of looking at our mistakes as just another tool for learning, we tend to let them become a crutch that prevents us from reaching our potential.

When you read Changing Your Course, by Bob and Melinda Blanchard, you can learn how to return to the habit of embracing your mistakes as tools for making good decisions in the future. Mistakes are life's way of teaching you what you can do better next time. It's only by picking yourself up and continuing down the road that you'll reach your destination.

Life is not easy.

And that's especially true when you decide to make big changes in your life. If you want to live your dreams instead of just letting them bounce around in your brain, you'll have to be willing to risk making mistakes.

If you're not willing to step out of your comfort zone, you won't get very far. It's time to learn to embrace your mistakes, learn all that you can from them, and then move on. Don't allow yourself to become paralyzed when you don't do things perfectly the first, second, or even fiftieth time. Returning to your youthful ability to learn from your mistakes will help you to grow and make your life the best it can be.

There are many reasons you could be arriving at the decision that it's time to live what you love. It could be that you've just graduated from school and you're looking at a future that's wide open with endless possibilities. Or you could be a few years down the road realizing that your life isn't what you always dreamed it would be.

You may have just experienced a major life-changing event such as a divorce, death in the family, or recovering from a serious illness. You could be someone who's about to retire, but isn't ready to quit living.

There are many paths that lead us to the understanding that we need something different in our lives. It may even be that you just woke up this morning and realized you want more from your existence.

In Live What You Love, Bob and Melinda Blanchard explore the reasons why we need to live our dreams and the amazing things that can happen once you make the decision to do it. It's not easy to change the course of your life and to make a new start, but with passion and perseverance, you can take your dreams and wishes and turn them into reality.

If you're ready to stop wishing and start putting, you'll enjoy reading their inspirational story and get started down the path of making a new life for yourself. Once you're ready to make a change, you'll want to develop a plan for making your dreams come true.

In the Blanchard's follow-up book Changing Your Course, you'll find step-by-step instructions for creating a plan to revamp your life. Do you have a passion in life? Can you imagine living a life devoted to that passion? If so, it's time to stop imagining and start living a more authentic life.

Bob and Melinda want to hear from you!

Share Your Story with them!

Most roads have bumps and a few steep hills. If life were just a smooth highway, we'd all be bored to tears. Without challenges, we'd have no sense of accomplishment. As toddlers, we faced the challenges of learning how to talk and how to walk. Those weren't easy skills to master and none of us got them right the first time we tried. But taking those first steps gave us a sense of accomplishment, of mastery. As we matured, we faced the challenges of love and confronted the demands of earning a living. Again, none of this comes easy, but every bump in the road served a purpose. By making mistakes we learn that when we hit barriers that stop us dead in our tracks, we can find detours to get around them. There's more than one way to tackle any problem. The solutions may not always be obvious and you might need to modify your plans a bit, but there's always a way to move forward.

So what do you do when something goes wrong? You learn from your mistakes and you find a way to turn obstacles into opportunities. We're lucky that when most people look at our lives, they pay more attention to our successes than our failures. We've even heard some say that everything we touch turns to gold. Imagine that.

While we are proud of our accomplishments and enjoy the recognition we receive when we succeed, we have failed and have certainly made our share of blunders. We wish we could say our life has been one positive achievement after another, but in life, things simply don't work out that way.

We're all very, very busy. We have e-mails to answer and planes to catch and we're always reshuffling our schedules to squeeze in meetings more urgent than the last. But every now and then, we get a signal that life could be more satisfying. Have you ever found yourself counting the days to the weekend - and it was only Monday?

You start searching for daily pleasures to reward yourself for getting through another day. Ice cream, shopping, and going out for dinner all help. Some people even believe that running off to a tropical island once a year will make them feel happy and fulfilled. Is it odd that we spend so much time planning our next escape?

When we were small, we'd blow out our birthday candles as hopes and dreams rushed through our heads. And when Jiminy Cricket urged us to wish upon a star, we all tried it at least once. So when exactly did you stop wishing? When did you start doing things you had to instead of things you wanted to do? When did your dreams get buried under the responsibilities of adulthood?

Now, you sense that something needs to change - and you're too busy to even stop and think about what it is. You long for when life's accomplishments filled you with joy and excitement. You remember embracing life with energy and enthusiasm. There were a million special days. The first day of school, the night before your fifth birthday, summer vacation, your first kiss...Those were momentous events that made you feel almost giddy inside.

But sometimes you feel stuck in such a great big rut. And as the years go by, the rut gets deeper and deeper. You know deep down you were meant to do more but the dreams you have seem so far away. They always seem just out of reach.

They're silly dreams, you tell yourself. Get real. After all, you have a job; you're earning a living. You have responsibilities. You can't go off chasing that crazy dream. Besides, it's scary to think about going out on a limb.

But that dream won't go away. It just keeps popping up. If only dreams came with a guarantee. Then you'd be as secure as you are now. Your job is secure, right?

Wouldn't it be awful to live your whole life and then say, "Wait! I need another chance. I just wanted to try this one thing."

Remember how scared you were to take those training wheels off your bike? Or how much courage it took for that first kiss? Nothing stopped you then.

So what's stopping you now?