News reports are fairly consistent in reporting that one of the demographic groups hit hardest by the economic crisis are women in their 50s and 60s. If you are among the group of women in this age group who have lost your previous job, you might want to read a very insightful article in Forbes.  The article by Judith H. Dobrzynski is entitled “Why Older Women Are Going Back to Work.” (www.forbes.com/2010/03/16/retirement-age-job-search-forbes-woman-net- worth-changing-careers_2.html)

Many women who are being laid off from executive management/leadership positions are losing both the job and a very good salary. Most of these women are not ready to retire. Some choose to continue to work because they want to work. Others will continue to work because they need the salary. But most of the women in this group are finding it necessary to make some major adjustments in expectations and working roles.

The article concludes, “We are at a point where we still want to work, but we want something different, like an ‘encore’ career,” she says. “I want to work and need to work, but I know myself better now. And now that my children are grown, I can look around and figure out what I really want to do.”

If you do not know what you want to do next – the nature of your encore career – or how to adapt to the loss of authority or power or control, or even how to cope with the need to make significant life changes to prepare for whatever is next, I encourage you to attend one of my seminars or the Dream Big, Live Big Event (www.DreamBigLiveBigEvent.com) in May. Even better, call me or send me an e-mail. I can help you discover what’s next in your life and embrace the future with hope and confidence.

Are you ready to start your encore career? Tell me here.

A big dream takes you all the way to where you want to go.  Sometimes we are afraid to dream BIG and to aspire to accomplish BIG results. And sometimes that fear causes us to settle for taking smaller steps toward smaller goals. This can be a good strategy if there is a clear and obvious next step from the first small goal to the next. Achieving small goals can move us gradually in the direction we want to go.

But sometimes the only way to reach our desired destination is to gather the courage to aim for that BIG dream without intermediate steps. Sometimes we must risk failure in order to achieve the BIG goal. Sometimes we must take the risk of falling and trying again to achieve the goal, even if others think our goals are too optimistic or too great a reach.

“Don’t be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”        — David Lloyd George

Find out just how far you can go – find out what is in you.  When you dare to dream BIG and you dare to stretch yourself to fulfill your big dream, you will find out what you are made of. You will discover the amazing depth of your passion for your dream, the breadth of your courage and the extent to which you can go to make your dream into reality. You might need the help and the support of others, but that is a bit part of what makes the journey so much fun! By daring to dream BIG and pursuing your dream with your greatest determination and strength and courage, you will probably test your limits and discover that there is more in you than you ever thought.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
– T.S. Eliot

You cannot make progress toward your goals until you take the first step.

The New Year brings to each of us the challenge to just BEGIN. No matter how large or how small your goals and plans, you will not achieve them until you BEGIN.

Gather your support group, gather your resources, gather your courage, and BEGIN. Trust your dream, trust your plans, and BEGIN.

Whether your initial steps are large or small, the first steps must be taken. Only you can take the first steps toward fulfillment of your dream. It will be a great and worthy task, but you must BEGIN.

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute
What you can do, or dream you can; begin it;
Boldness has genius, power magic in it.
Only engage, and then the mind grows heated;
Begin and then the work will be completed.
            — Goethe

“Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.”
– Pamela Vaull Starr

Whether you call them dreams, goals, aspirations or something else, make them big; make them profound; make them worth your best effort. Let them draw you out of your past, away from your fears, and beyond any failures of the past.

Allow your dreams to become big enough to define your goals for every year and even for every day of the rest of your life. Establish for your life a roadmap to your dream, mapping daily steps to accomplishment of the whole. Then pursue the goal of each day with all your heart and all your joy.

Moving ever closer to your dream will warm your heart, will embrace the support and the involvement of others, and will light a fire that will inspire those around you to share both the trials of the journey and the celebration of success.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster www.drcynthiabarnett.com

“First, say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.”
 – Epictetus, Discourses

Who do your dreams call you to become? How will fulfilling your dreams transform you? If fulfilling a dream will not make you better or stronger is it worth pursuing?

I am convinced that as we reach the second phase of our lives and we are given the gift of a chance to pursue our dreams, we owe it to ourselves to pursue only worthy dreams. The others are probably best left in the memory of the years of our immaturity.

The dreams that remain, the dreams that draw us forward, should be worthy of the experience, the wisdom and the skill acquired over half a lifetime. Worthy dreams demand of us new growth and new passion for life. When you have discovered that dream hiding somewhere deep in your soul, it will demand all that you have to give and in return it will give you a more fulfilling and happy life.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

Throughout our lives we dream of a future we would like to design. From childhood dreams of a world filled with lollipops and cotton candy, available to us every moment, our dreams change to what life would be “if only.”  In time, our dreams mature apace with our lives and we dream of a future more beautiful, more compelling and more perfect than the reality of life at the moment.

The true beauty of a dream is its power to transform the present into a future that is better in some meaningful way. A dream might promise something better only for the dreamer or it might aspire to something greater for society. Often what begins as the former will find fulfillment as the latter.

One of the most magical things about dreams pursued is the power of the pursuit to transform the dream itself and make it something more worthy of pursuit and more beautiful to all who are touched by its achievement.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com

“There is nothing like a dream to create the future.”
– Victor Hugo

Human history glows with the truth of Hugo’s words. Human civilization has progressed through every age because courageous people dared to dream a better future and then dared to make it true. If you doubt it, pick up any novel by Victor Hugo and read the beautiful and transformative stories of those who dreamed and whose dreams shaped the future.

It makes no difference how big a dream might be. Every dream has the power to evoke our greatest strength, our most compelling determination, and our most luminous success. Only those who dream will ever know how big the dream or what effort was required to make it real. But a dream fulfilled will stand alone as a measure of achievement and, hopefully, as a measure of lives improved.

No matter how expansive or how personal you believe your dream to be, it is the sharing of it and the achievement of it that will reveal its true power to create a better future.

Get your FREE Special Report on the 7 Secrets of Highly Successful Big Dreamers and also receive the bi-weekly Dream Big Booster at www.drcynthiabarnett.com