The Lifeworks Group, Inc.

By: Cara Griffin-Locker, IMH As children, thoughts of what we would do when we get older were endless. Our dreams, hopes and aspirations were as big as the world we live in. The desire and need to be successful were not yet as strong as our desire and need for adventure and fun. However, as we grew up, money became inherently more important than our childhood aspirations. It is the powerful tool for building empires and lavish lifestyles. Money can make some people happy and others miserable. For some, in today’s society, the pursuit of money can be directly linked to the pursuit of happiness. The idea that money is the key to happiness is problematic because it often leads people down a career path that may not be meant for them. They choose money over passion and childhood dreams. They choose the materialistic ways of the world, rather than a life of simplicity and passion. Whatever happened to the saying “choose something you like to do and you will never work a day in your lif...

Brian M. Murray, MS   “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” ― Thomas A. Edison   Hope can be a powerful force. It drives the future with a sort of romanticized vision with excitement and enthusiasm. Whether it is with marriage, having children, an exciting career or a certain lifestyle, hope and dreams drive the motivation and inspiration to achieve that dream. Sometimes, however, those dreams get crushed. Reality steps in and begins to paint a bleak picture of that future and over time the anticipation begins to fade. The vision gets lost, the hope disappears, motivation wanes and life can feel stuck. It’s almost as if the color gets washed out of the dream and it loses its luster appearance and develops that sense of hopelessness. How does someone who is feeling in despair about their life bring hope back into the picture? Feeling like being in a hopeless situation does not necessarily mean they have to abandon hope itself...

Laura Hull, LMFT Coping Coach   I borrowed part of the title of this blog from a song made popular by a famous group in the early 1990’s.   It was a contagious little ditty, if not blunt and to the point.   Songwriters throughout modern history have made a lot of money writing songs about broken hearts and broken dreams.   Alas, broken dreams are a common experience; perhaps even a common thread in the human experience that binds us together like a stadium wave, with lit smartphone flame in hand.   At one point or another, we all have ideas that are born in the form of a dream.   We invest ourselves, if not physically (or financially) at the very least emotionally, in the making of those dreams coming true.   I am a big believer in dreaming big.   I am also a big believer in having a “dream big, plan B” and a “dream big, plan C”.   I will explain why later.   Before I dive into the meat of this article, ...

By: Christine Hammond, LMHC It seems like yesterday when you held your child for the first time and stared in to their eyes with wonderment, awe, and intense love.   It was a magical, miraculous moment when all things seemed possible and they could become anything they wanted to be.   You poured optimism into them daily and began dreaming of the adult they would one day become and all the accomplishments they would achieve. But something happened.   Perhaps it was a medical condition that would forever alter the possibilities of becoming an Olympic athlete.   Or perhaps it was a behavioral issue that would preclude them from attending certain schools.   Or perhaps it was a developmental disorder that would significantly change their interaction with others.   Or maybe it was simply fear, anxiety, obsession, depression or an addiction that would leave a lasting imprint, forever revising your dreams. Whatever the cause, the dreams you first dr...

By Matt W Sandford Everyone, I think, has goals and dreams: a great job where you are respected and with travel opportunities; finding “the one” to spend your life with; becoming a Mom or Dad; starting your own business. But many of those dreams are not realized and sometimes the dream is found and then lost. I know this personally. My wife and I had reached our dream, but then in flash, it was gone. Many times it’s not just that a dream has to be put on hold or doesn’t materialize, but that “life” interferes in cruel ways through hardships of all kinds, like injury, chronic illness or disease, death of loved ones, financial loss, crime, or natural disaster. A dream can be broken slowly over time or could go up in smoke in a flash, but the loss of our dreams is like experiencing a kind of death. We seem wired to dream and make plans. When someone has no plan and has no interest in making plans for their life, most would believe that there is something wrong. Without drea...

  By Laura Hull,   MA, LMFT   “What am I going to be when I grow up?”    Remember asking that question when we were children?   From the time we were old enough to realize that one day we would have jobs and go to work for real, we pondered the possibilities of what we would one day be.   Maybe we dreamed about being a doctor or a fireman…maybe a rock star.   Maybe we dreamed even bigger.   But for a long time, any thoughts we had about what we wanted for a career were just that, thoughts and dreams.   However, by the time high school was over, real grown up decisions must be made about how to chart a course for our adult lives. Some choose to further their education in college or a trade school, while others join the working force in some capacity.     By the time I was halfway through my undergrad program, I came to the terrible realization that I had made a horrible mistake in what I had chosen to major...

By Chris Hammond, MS, IMH You can almost mark the date because everything changed.   The person you thought you knew became entirely different and not for the better.   It is almost cliché that with a mid-life crisis comes the impractical sports car, the extramarital affair, late nights at bars, new friends who are twenty years younger, hipper clothes or a dramatic career change.   While you never thought it would happen to you or your spouse, you find yourself in exactly that place.   How did you ever get here? Erik Erikson defines his seventh psychosocial stage as Generativity vs. Stagnation which occurs in the late thirties until the mid-sixties.   This time period in an adult life encompasses the mid-life crisis years which can begin and end anytime in between.   So what is a mid-life crisis?   It is when an adult evaluates where they are in life compared to the dreams and goals they once had for themselves, to the status of others the...

As told by Dwight Bain Krystal Thomas is a champion in anyone’s book. By age 18 the 6’ 5” center had led her high school basketball team to back to back state championships with an average of 19 points/12 rebounds and named State Finals MVP both years. She had played in national tournaments like the McDonalds’s All America Game- where she led her East team to a victory, the WBCA All-America Game, (Women’s Basketball Coaches Association), the AAU Nationals and Nike Tournament of Champions. She had been named Miss Florida Basketball, the Gatorade State Player of the Year and earned USA Today, EA Sports, McDonald’s and Parade first team All-America for her high school career totaling 1,751 points, 1,357 rebounds and 268 blocks. She had won a full scholarship to play for the Lady Blue Devils of Duke University with her remarkable sports career as a teenager and she’s just getting started! This outstanding athlete is already on the fast track to the Olympics by leading her USA Under19 T...

by Vic Johnson One of my life's most valuable possessions is my journal. Why? Because my journal contains my dreams! And my dreams are my future! I learned this principle from a story about a 15 year old boy by the name of John Goddard. John, one day, happened to hear his parents and another adult talking, and the other adult had been telling John's parents about how miserable his life was and how much he had failed. He wished he was John's age again and could live his life over and do some things differently. Well, John heard the anguish in his voice, I suppose, and he made a vow that he was going to do something at 15 years old. So at 15 years old he took out a legal pad and began to write the things he wanted to do in his life, what he wanted to accomplish. Before he was finished he had 127 things on his list. He called it, "My Life List". Today John is in his late 70's. Of his original 127 goals, John over the last 55-60 years has accomplished 111 of them,...

By by John C. Maxwell In my years studying leadership and evaluating leaders, I have stumbled across a leadership shortcoming that continually amazes me. Leaders will manage a team, work with the same individuals every day, yet hardly know anything about their people! These leaders have never prioritized acquainting themselves with the dreams, thoughts, hopes, opinions, and values of those they lead. The best leaders are readers of people. They have the intuitive ability to understand others by discerning how they feel and recognizing what they sense. I have found that leaders overestimate the amount of time and effort needed to get to know someone. In fact, in only one hour with you in private conversation, I could, probably by asking three questions, find the passion of your life: What do you dream about? A person's dreams are powerful revealers of passion. When a person starts to talk about their dreams it's as if something bubbles up from within. Their eyes brighten, their ...

by Jim Rohn, Master Coach While most people spend most of their lives struggling to earn a living, a much smaller number seem to have everything going their way. Instead of just earning a living, the smaller group is busily working at building and enjoying a fortune. Everything just seems to work out for them. And here sits the much larger group, wondering how life can be so unfair, so complicated and unjust. What's the major difference between the little group with so much and the larger group with so little? Despite all of the factors that affect our lives - like the kind of parents we have, the schools we attended, the part of the country we grew up in - none has as much potential power for affecting our futures as our ability to dream. Dreams are a projection of the kind of life you want to lead. Dreams can drive you. Dreams can make you skip over obstacles. When you allow your dreams to pull you, they unleash a creative force that can overpower any obstacle in your path....

By: Dr. John C. Maxwell Most of us never see our dreams come true. Instead of soaring through the clouds, our dreams languish like a broken-down airplane confined to its hangar. Through life, I have come to identify five common reasons why dreams don't take flight. #1 We Have Been Discouraged from Dreaming by Others We have to pilot our own dreams; we cannot entrust them to anyone else. People who aren't following their own dreams resent us pursuing ours. Such people feel inadequate when we succeed, so they try to drag us down. If we listen to external voices, then we allow our dreams to be hijacked. At some point, other people will place limitations on us by doubting our abilities. When surrounded by the turbulence of criticism, we have to grasp the controls tightly to keep from being knocked off course. #2 We Are Hindered by Past Disappointments and Hurts In the movie Top Gun, Tom Cruise plays Maverick, a young, talented, and cocky aviator who dreams of being the pr...