When you envision your goals to set your mind for success, this does not grant you permission to be delusional. Goals must be achievable along the responsible road, taking the next small step closest to you, staying between the lines of low-investment and scalable growth.
Many totalitarian governments build large highways and enormous high-rises, entirely empty and unfinished. But, tomorrow’s infrastructure must be built tomorrow, today’s roads must be sized for the traffic of today. As you dream big, dream the phases responsible enough that Heaven will help you build.
Tell yourself that your success is “reachable” and “feasible” and “within your normal capabilities”. Set these ideas in your mind and heart, remind yourself daily, reexplain it to yourself again when you see someone else achieving what you seek.
Dreaming is different from telling yourself that you are already finished and can kick up your feet. The awareness that you can surely achieve a good thing should naturally drive you to work for it, if not then something is terribly wrong, either with your goals or with your mindset.
When the presence of other people interferes with your progress, do not presume that you need to put distance between you and them. Gauge the challenge according to your direction. Stay on task and don’t waste time if your relationship with them us purely recreational. If they say something you don’t like while they demonstrate the competence to help with your goals, then that something may very well be a thing you need to hear, regardless of whether you want to hear it. Perhaps they themselves are your project, to help them learn the ways of happiness and mental determination.
If you run away from difficult allies, you won’t be able to confront adversaries; difficult friends contribute to your own strength and if you run from every difficult friend then you won’t have any friends at all in your day of trouble. You are just as difficult to others as others seem difficult to you. Simply tell yourself that this is normal, no big deal, and that the difficulty that comes with having good friends is just another challenging trophy “within your normal capabilities” to earn.