Sunday nights have been called family movie night in our home for years. When the kids were young, it was easy to pick out the movie, but as they’ve grown older it seems like everyone has a different opinion of what the movie should be, which as you can guess, might cause one or two members to be frustrated, at least initially.

This past Sunday, was no exception. The movie suggestions started flowing in as we went through our Netflix Que and our Amazon Prime channels without all agreeing, when suddenly  my husband recommend that we watch “Rudy.”  I thought, “Seriously? We don’t need to go back 20+ years to find a movie we can all agree on.” He stated his reasons why he wanted to watch it and ironically we all agreed. What an inspiring, moving movie about perseverance to watch and the bonus was that it had many teaching points to discuss afterwards.  This is a great movie to watch with your family, your sales team, or just by yourself to inspire you to go after your big dream no matter what the rest of the world thinks.

The movie is based on the true story of Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger’s life. From a young age, Rudy dreamed of playing football at Notre Dame, but he had barriers. He wasn’t very big, he was a poor student and lastly, his father didn’t believe in dreaming big.  Initially, Rudy only had one friend encouraging him to go after his dream while the rest of his world, mocked him and discouraged him.  I won’t give away the entire movie, but the message is strong that perseverance is the key to accomplishing any and all of your big dreams.

Here are my six biggest takeaways from this movie:

  1. Share your dream with others; it keeps the dream alive inside of you.
  2. Understand that when you dream big, your dream doesn’t come to fruition overnight. Big dreams take time…sometimes years.
  3. Don’t let others opinions of you or your dream stop you from believing in yourself.
  4. Don’t be afraid to ask for help along the way.
  5. Be willing to work harder than anyone else on your big dream.
  6. Be okay with small failures along the way. Failures can be used as learning tools on your journey and can benefit you in the long run.

Why do so many people fail and so few succeed? I believe that the simple answer is the ability to hang on to their dreams when their dreams look impossible to the rest of the world. I believe that it is the ability to be patient, focused and to persevere through the good, the bad and the ugly times.

Let me ask you a question, “Are you willing to do whatever it takes to pursue your big dreams?

– See more at: http://loveyourlife2.com/blog/2016/02/07/do-you-have-what-it-takes#sthash.uLhgobuF.dpuf