Living Beyond “What If?”

“Imagination is the first step towards achieving your dreams, but taking action is what transforms those dreams into reality.”

1. Imagine Your Future to Shape It

Our imagination is a powerful tool that helps us visualize the life we want. As children, imagination flows freely, but adulthood often dims this ability due to real-world challenges. Shirley Davis shares how setbacks in her life shattered her dreams but also motivated her to rediscover the courage to imagine new possibilities.

Imagination serves as both a spark and a guide. For Davis, a life-threatening car accident in her early adulthood forced her to rethink her existence. Shortly after, divorce and financial struggles compounded her challenges. Despite these difficulties, she used imagination to reframe her circumstances and chart a new path forward.

Imagining the life you want doesn’t mean ignoring reality. It means allowing yourself to picture a better future while working through obstacles. For Davis, revisiting and expanding her dreams became essential to moving beyond survival into a life filled with intention and purpose.

Examples

• Surviving a car crash made Davis reflect deeply on what she wanted out of life.
• Her struggle through debt and an unplanned pregnancy shifted her perspective on what she could accomplish.
• The need to reimagine after a traumatic incident, like a bank robbery, drove her to assess her goals anew.

2. Learn to Take Calculated Risks and Never Look Back

Big life changes often start with risks. For Davis, embracing discomfort resulted in pivotal moments of growth. She didn’t stay in her comfort zone but evaluated opportunities, calculated the risks, and then leapt.

Initially, Davis resisted taking on an HR promotion, fearing the required changes in her lifestyle. Ultimately, this risk transformed her career. From there, she kept taking leaps: starting her consulting firm, leaving bad relationships, and even moving out of state. What made these ventures successful was her strategic planning, supported by clear exit strategies.

Taking risks doesn’t mean being reckless. It means preparing thoroughly and understanding the possible outcomes. Davis advocates for creating rooms to pivot and adjust, which allows you to make daring moves without losing stability.

Examples

• The HR role she initially feared became a steppingstone to her professional success.
• Leaving behind her corporate job and launching her own business demonstrated the power of bold choices.
• Successful risk-taking came from her habit of weighing pros and cons and writing out detailed plans.

3. Beat Procrastination by Breaking Tasks into Steps

Procrastination can hinder dreams. It’s easy to delay important actions when immediate rewards seem more enticing than future outcomes. Davis learned to break this pattern by turning large, overwhelming tasks into smaller, manageable steps.

She employed behavioral chaining to tackle her credit card debt, aiming to resolve the highest-interest accounts first. This small-step approach kept her motivated. Additionally, Davis rewired her thought patterns. Instead of focusing on questions like “What if I fail?” she trained herself to embrace her strengths and think positively.

Davis’ method shows that progress doesn’t have to happen overnight. It’s about consistency and celebrating small victories along the way. This approach helped her become disciplined and deliberate in pursuing her aspirations.

Examples

• Paid off $22,000 of credit card debt gradually instead of tackling it all at once.
• Reshaped self-doubt into affirmations by replacing negative thoughts with empowering beliefs.
• Set modest goals that contributed directly toward achieving larger life plans.

4. Fear is Learned: Face It to Achieve Growth

We are born with only two fears—falling and loud noises. Every other fear is learned, and by extension, it can be unlearned. Davis believes that confronting fears is critical to living an empowered life of purpose.

She recounts the story of her colleague Stephanie, whose life appeared perfect but was secretly fraught with fear and self-doubt. Refusing to face her fears led to a tragic downfall. Stephanie’s story underscores the importance of addressing fear head-on and refusing to get trapped in imagined limitations.

Confronting fears involves acknowledging and naming them to diminish their control, taking small actions toward change, and building self-confidence through affirmations. Davis also emphasizes imagining a positive outcome to stay motivated.

Examples

• Stephanie struggled due to fear of rejection and suffered personal and professional losses.
• Davis used affirmations to overcome fears tied to starting her consulting business.
• Writing down fears during confident moments helped her address future challenges effectively.

5. Design Your Life with Purpose and Clear Goals

Finding your purpose requires deep reflection and a structured plan. After conquering her fears, Davis created a life plan that aligned with her goals and values, accompanied by an annual retreat to realign her focus.

Her ME-TREAT trips to the Caribbean became a time for solitude, reflection, and recalibration. These trips allowed her to assess her accomplishments and reset her priorities effectively. With this clarity, she was able to design a plan that bolstered her career, relationships, finances, health, and spirituality.

Having a purpose statement—a succinct declaration of your life’s mission—provides clarity and motivation. Davis sees creating such a statement as the foundation for setting achievable and flexible goals.

Examples

• Davis reviews her life plan during annual solo vacations to stay on track.
• Reading self-development books and attending seminars helped her realign with her purpose.
• Her purpose statement acts as a compass: “to empower others to find meaning and success.”

6. Relationships Are the Foundation of Success

Strong relationships begin with yourself. Davis emphasizes that self-improvement and self-respect are prerequisites for creating meaningful connections.

Your personal board of advisors reflects your inner circle of trust. These are the family, friends, and colleagues you rely on for candid advice. Beyond that, growing an extended network brings diverse insights and opportunities. Throughout her journey, Davis nurtured relationships to fuel her career and personal growth.

When you invest in relationships, they become mutually supportive. Davis experienced this firsthand through referrals that propelled her consultancy work. Cultivating connections isn’t just about professional gains—it’s about enriching your worldview.

Examples

• 95% of her consulting contracts stem from referrals in her network.
• Reflecting on questions like “Am I true to myself?” shaped her relationship with herself.
• Building a diverse network enhanced her business and personal outlook.

7. Taking Action Beats Waiting for Perfection

One of the greatest lessons Davis imparts is that the “right moment” to chase a dream rarely arrives. Instead of waiting, she encourages stepping forward with preparation and courage.

She illustrates this with her own achievements—earning a doctorate by 40, writing books, and winning a national pageant title. None of these happened without her taking purposeful action and silencing the internal voices of doubt.

Life often requires a leap of faith. Whether it’s starting a new business or rewriting your priorities, Davis demonstrates that bold action drives transformation.

Examples

• Earned her doctorate as part of her dynamic goal setting.
• Successfully transitioned to running her global consulting firm by refusing to let fear stop her.
• Proactively tackled dreams she once thought impossible, such as writing multiple books.

8. Failure is the Key to Learning

Davis reframes failure not as an endpoint but as a stepping-stone. Every misstep is an opportunity to grow and refine yourself.

She shares how early challenges—divorce, debt, and near-death experiences—taught her resilience. Instead of succumbing to despair, she took lessons from each hardship to fuel her success.

Embracing failure as part of the process prevents fear of mistakes from holding you back. Davis highlights that failures, if approached thoughtfully, can guide us more effectively than successes.

Examples

• Rebuilding her life after a divorce prepared her mentally for future challenges.
• Career setbacks led her to create a business that reflected her passions.
• Overcoming financial struggles helped her adopt a wise and responsible approach to money.

9. Celebrate Milestones and Stay Adaptable

Achieving goals isn’t just about hard work—it’s also about taking moments to celebrate your wins, no matter how small. This practice fosters positivity and motivates you to keep going.

Davis celebrates through reflection and acknowledgment, particularly during her annual reset vacations. Celebrating victories doesn’t mean abandoning ambition but using accomplishments as stepping-stones for new goals.

Adaptability is equally important. Life plans should evolve as you do. Staying flexible opens the door for opportunities you may not have foreseen.

Examples

• ME-TREAT trips are used to celebrate achievements and plan ahead.
• She regularly adjusts her life goals based on where she is at any given time.
• Milestone celebrations reenergize her commitment to long-term aims.

Takeaways

1. Break big dreams into small, actionable steps to avoid procrastination and make consistent progress.
2. Face your fears by naming them, understanding their source, and taking small courageous actions.
3. Build a strong relationship with yourself and others through self-reflection and meaningful connections.