4. Action. Talk is cheap! The vast majority of people will wait forever for their lives to start and their dreams to come true. And there will be that eternal desire for someone to save us. Pardon again my bluntness, but there won’t be a knight in shining armor, sorry! We have to become the knight and save ourselves. Oh, and just to clarify. I’m absolutely convinced that there is a knight for me out there, but I don’t want him to save me, and I certainly have let go of the desire of wanting to save him. We have to be the change we wish to see in the world.

5. Integrity. If we pursue our dreams, but lose our soul, the dreams will eventually turn into nightmares. There is no dream worth realizing if we can’t keep our integrity. I’ve learned this the hard way. Every time I’ve sold out—to please someone, to prove myself, or just because I didn’t have time to listen to the signals my body was communicating to me—I’ve paid a high price. I can’t do that anymore. And neither should you. You are much too valuable for that.

6. Hope/faith. When I started working with my coach, I had no cabability of sustaining longer moments of hope or faith. It was like a muscle that had atrophied or maybe never was there to start with. After five years of coaching, I finally felt stable enough to know that my legs wouldn’t give in under me, and that I had created enough of a foundation to sustain my hope and my faith. My spiritual journey has also been hugely important in providing me with the knowledge that my dreams aren’t products of a megalomanic mind, but rather a part of something that I play a small but important role in. Just like you. And you have to develop the muscle called faith in order to make it through. Sometimes the most important thing to do is to surrender, allowing things to unfold, which takes a huge amount of faith as well.

7. Joy. There is no point of pursuing our dreams if we aren’t having fun. It can’t be fun all the time—weathering a storm is not fun. And neither is the accompanying darkness. But yet there is a light somewhere down the road, and that is what we need to aim for, and that will sustain us. Being born in Ingmar Bergman country, being a Capricorn, I’m not “light.” I’ve lightened up a lot during these years, however, and now I’ve committed myself to stop striving so much for my entire life. My new commitment is to make joy a centerpiece of my life. I invite you to do the same.

Lotta Alsén is a member of the Los Angeles Incubator and is on a mission to spread Quickenings across the globe by empowering women to step up as global change agents and leaders.

Ladies Who Launch is asking you … what do you think of Lotta’s advice? Let everyone know in the Comments section below!

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