Developing Habits to Achieve Your Dreams with Colonel Chris Hadfield

“When I was 9 years old, Neil [Armstrong] and Buzz [Aldrin] walked on the moon. And I just thought, ‘Man, I’m going to grow up to be something. Why don’t I grow up to be that?'” Chris Hadfield recalls.

Inspired by historic events – and his childhood interest in popular sci-fi works like Star Trek – Hadfield went on to become one of the first Canadian commanders of the International Space Station and a highly decorated astronaut, achieving awards like the Order of Canada and NASA Exceptional Service Medal.

On this week’s episode of the Start With a Win podcast, the astronaut, engineer, pilot and author of best-selling books joins RE/MAX Holdings CEO Adam Contos to share how he turned dreams into a reality day by day – and how others can, too.

“I consciously decided to turn myself into an astronaut on July 20, 1969 – the day that the first two people walked on the moon. And then I’ve just worked on it ever since,” Hadfield says.

Working in a daring profession, he has spent a great deal of time differentiating fear from danger – a breakthrough that led him to write an empowering children’s book on the subject.

“It’s really important in life to know the difference between fear and danger. We tend to sort of treat them like the same thing, but they’re not a synonym. Fear and danger are different things. Things aren’t fearful, just sometimes people are,” Hadfield explains.

“So, I wrote that book The Darkest Dark because it’s really important when you’re a kid to learn that it’s normal to be afraid, but what you do with your fear is really going to dictate your whole life.”

Achieving greatness and leading a fulfilling life, according to Hadfield, begins with goal setting.

“You’ve got to have dreams. You’ve got to have something you’re trying to accomplish. If you don’t know what your goal is, then how do you decide what to do next?” he asks.

I think it’s really critical to do yourself the favor of having a few right-on-the-edge-of-crazy dreams and goals that you want to try and accomplish in your life. And I don’t mean just a bucket list so you can brag to other people, but stuff you actually value that is going to make you feel fulfilled.”

With a career choc-full of historic feats, Hadfield’s best advice is to identify what skills you lack to meet that goal and map out small steps forward. He tells listeners to figure out what they can do right now to develop a skill that inches toward a goal. Hadfield, for example, read books about rockets, signed up for swimming lessons, and joined the Air Cadets (civil air patrol) to get his pilot’s license before becoming an astronaut.

“None of those steps turned me into an astronaut. But each one of them moved my life a little closer to what I fantasized about. And that is a wonderful, joyful thing if every single day you are shifting your life a little bit away from wherever you were and toward the stuff that you really value,” he says.

Tune in to this week’s podcast episode to hear more out of this world advice from Hadfield.

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