The truth is that people will not always believe in your vision, and they may even doubt your dream. You may have a big dream, or a very brilliant vision which you may be excited about, but it does not mean that others will agree with you. When you create a different pathway for yourself, or when you want to do a different thing from what others are doing, there will be people who will not understand you. They may even doubt you, question your choices, and laugh at you for dreaming too big. In these situations, you have to learn to believe in your vision and in your dreams even if other people do not see anything in it.
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One of the things that you need to understand is that people may not doubt you out of anger, but maybe out of fear or out of lack of imagination. For example, you may share with someone about your idea of starting a new business, and they will look at it from their own limitation. If they cannot imagine themselves doing it, they will immediately assume that you cannot do it either. There are also times that even your own family and your close friends may be the ones trying to discourage you. This is not because they hate you, but they may be doing it to protect you from failure. They prefer you to stay safe even if it means remaining in your comfort zone. When you recognise that their doubt often comes from a place of fear, it will make you not to be angry with them. You have to bear in mind that the vision is your own, not their own.
I once read about how Airbnb started. Airbnb has become very popular as a place to connect people who have accommodation with people looking for it, maybe for short-term stay. The brains behind it were Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky. When they conceived the vision a lot of people did not believe in it. They wanted to rent out air mattress in one of the rooms in their house to strangers, so as to be able to pay for rent. When they shared the idea with a couple of people, they knocked it off, saying that strangers will not sleep in just any random house. They tried to get funding for their idea, but investors did not believe in the dream, so the proposed investors did not not invest. But they did not abandon their vision even when no one else believed them.
When they saw that the investors were not forthcoming, they decided to start with what they had. They even had to sell boxes of breakfast cereal just to raise the money to fund their idea. At some points, they even ran out of funds, but they did not relent. They focused mainly on making their website better, and then they travelled to meet with users themselves to sell their services directly to them. That was how they started getting patronage. The same idea that a lot of people saw as being weird at the initial stage grew, and today, it has risen to become a multi-billion dollar company. If the founders had listened to the doubters, their vision would have died before even having a chance to grow.
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You have to understand that your vision is given to you, and as such, you are the one who understands the final picture in your mind. Expecting people to understand your vision without seeing it, is like expecting people to see a house before even a single brick is laid. You have to build first, so that others will see it. It is when people see your results that they will understand your vision and your dream. But until then, you have to keep building and cheering yourself up. You must dominate your mind with positive thoughts, and then keep reminding yourself of the reason why you started in the first place. Then focus on taking actions.
Instead of trying to convince people about your vision with mere words, it is better to take actions and let the result of your hardwork do the talking for you. When you invest your time and energy to work hard, to learn new things, and to make progress, you will overcome self-doubt. Each step you take towards your vision is a proof that you believe it is real and possible. It is your continuous action that will build the confidence you need to keep going. This also protects your vision from the negative opinions of other people.
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