Self Education is the Key to Making Our Dreams Come True

"Formal education will make you a living but self education will make you a fortune."

This was said by Jim Rohn, one of the top 50 motivational speakers in personal development and one of the trainers at the top online personal development site, Success University.

Formal education is never easy. When I was at school I wasn't really that bothered about whether I got an A in Maths or History. I was too worried about whether people liked me or not, where I could get the latest Rod Stewart photos or whether my skirt was the trendiest length.

Yet, education seems to happen despite the student. We come out with our varied grades and reports of "Could do better" (in my case), but somehow we get some sort of an education. Unfortunately, going to school is never the choice of the pupil, it is a requirement. In most Western countries it is the common consensus that you must go to school so you can get a job and earn a living.

Perhaps this is why many of us achieve only average results. We are not doing it out of love, but because we have to. It's the law.

However, self-education has far more power because we only come to it through personal choice. Because we have chosen it, we feel it is our responsibility to take it on and achieve the results we want. This gives us self-motivation and we are far more likely to succeed.

I know this is true because after a mediocre set of school grades, in later years I took a degree with the Open University - for no other reason than because I wanted to - and I achieved a First Class Honours Degree in Humanities. I majored in history, which was a subject I wasn't even interested in at school.

Because it was my choice, and a subject I had come to love through my own discovery, I was far more motivated to succeed.

Unfortunately, many people believe that once they have finished their school education, there is nothing more to learn. They get a job, and might earn a comfortable living, but very rarely do they live the life of their dreams.

When we were very young children, before we were old enough to allow ourselves to be limited, our dreams were boundless. We talked about what we are going to be or do when we are grown-up without any doubt that it is possible. Now we really are grown-up, we laugh at these childish statements. We think we know better.

Sadly, the last laugh is on us. We our not only stamping on our own dreams, but those of our children too.

When people reach adulthood, they start to give up their dreams and start to play small. Those huge, passionate dreams are adjusted to the mundanity of every day life, and gradually dwindle to nothing more than a distant memory.

As this happens, our vision becomes smaller; our lives become mediocre and boring. We focus only on earning enough money to keep out of debt and paying the bills. We begin to suffer and wonder why we are not happy or fulfilled.

This is not how life is meant to be.

Inside us is a huge potential: all our big dreams and passions that we have tucked away in a dark little box. But this box is always waiting for us to re-discover and open it again.

Inside this box is all the inspiration, power and joy of life; it's all there inside of you, waiting to get out.

We are aware that it's there. There is that little niggling voice at the back of our minds that we are not living the life we wanted, but we allow ourselves to be influenced by our conditioning: "it's not possible, I can't do it, it's too big". So we stuff it down again and get on with our small lives, excusing ourselves by saying, "Ah, well, it's OK I suppose".

Do you really want to live a "just OK" kind of life?

When you pursue your dreams, you feel energised, full of inspiration and excitement. You also feel authentic. Perhaps, for the first time in your life you are living truthfully. This is an incredibly powerful feeling. And the bigger your dreams, the more intense the feeling.

It may take courage to start with, but once you have made that commitment a new world will open up to you. All you have to do is to start listening to yourself - allow that little voice to tell you what you need. Once you have done this, you will start to develop the mindset that you possess all that you need to live the life of your dreams. Your will power will strengthen, your confidence will grow - and then you will be ready to learn the strategies that will reinvent your life.

Self-education then becomes a powerful resource that you will come to with passion and a will to succeed. This is real learning.

After that, making our dreams come true is only a matter of time.