It used to be all about bored university students writing messages to each other across the room on their laptops when they probably should have been listening to their lecturer. Then it turned into bored university students writing messages to each other across the world on their laptops when they should have been listening to their lecturer. And now it is a $12.75 billion enterprise where university students have even more reason to turn their attention to their laptops rather than their lecturer.

Yes, it’s Facebook. That website was unknown to many a mere six years ago, and pretty average overall. Now it is the world’s largest and most used social networking website, worth more money than its creator, Mark Zuckerburg could ever have dreamed of. It’s even being seen as a major threat to Google due to the number of searches to news sites coming from it, and the huge ‘multiplier effect’ of the users’ network of contacts.

At the outset, however, Zuckerburg did dream of doing something great. And he accomplished it. Sites like Twitter and Linkedin now have to eat Facebook’s dust as it shoots out in front of them, Road Runner style.

Zuckerburg was just a lowly geek from LA who never seemed to be the guy who would get the girl. But he kept following his dream, and he achieved it. How many of us can say we have done that? Well, not all of us have to be billionaires to have achieved our dream. A dream can be anything. For a newly married couple it could be starting a family or buying their own home. For an 80 year old it could be learning how to send an SMS. Or it could be becoming financially comfortable in your retirement.

We’ve all met people who say that achieving your dreams is easy. However, the fact is, achieving your dream is actually a tough slog. It takes time, effort, planning and endurance. It’s easy to get discouraged when things don’t turn out quite as you planned them. Lots of people allow themselves to get discouraged to the point where they simply give up on their dream.

Tom Petty puts it beautifully in his song Zombie Zoo where he sings:

You can make a big impression or go through life unseen

You might wind up restricted or over seventeen.

And he’s right. It is easy to go through life without making much of an impact on anything, never quite achieving what you wanted to achieve. But in the end you might feel that you didn’t use your time or your potential to its full capacity, that you somehow missed out on something. This would be a sad and unfulfilled result, and it doesn’t need to be that way.

You do have the power to achieve your dreams. It is not easy and it takes a lot of effort, but dreams are attainable. One of the most important things to do is write down your dream. An unwritten goal would be better named a wish. If you can’t even commit to writing it down, to visualising it on paper, how will you ever have the commitment needed to realise the dream?

Mark Zuckerberg, the computer nerd from White Plains, New York achieved his goal, and transformed the world of social interaction in the process. So why shouldn’t you achieve yours?

There are few things that can stand in the way of a person determined to achieve their goals. Why not put the power of this fact to work for you? As they say, “If you can dream it, you can do it”. So why not write down your dream, and go after it with determination and purpose.

If you would like to learn more and discuss how McCarthy Group can assist you, click here.