Creating plans for the future – dreaming up what you want to do, how you want to be, how you want to live – are so closely woven into our lives and are so important that not enough emphasis is put on them.
Dreams can be short term, dreams can be long term.
Thinking about where you want to go on your next holiday and what you’ll do while you’re there is a dream. Thinking of starting a new business based on your passion is a dream. And there’s the age-old question – what do I want to be when I grow up ;). I’m sure there are many of us still working on that one!
How do dreams get thwarted?
Here are a few scenarios:
Let’s say you’ve always loved baking cakes and dreamed of opening your own coffee shop selling home-made cakes. You get some professional training to do with health and safety; some business training so you know how to run a business. You start the process of finding premises to open your bakery but everywhere you try there are just too many regulations that seem to get in your way. After a while, you start to lose sight of your dream and end up giving up.
Or, when you were at school you always dreamed of being an artist. You went to art college and produced a lot of great art. After college you have to support yourself whilst your art career takes off so you got a “job”. You create art and put it online but nothing sells. You have a couple of little exhibitions and maybe sell one or two pieces that only just cover the costs of the exhibition. After a number of failures like this you start to give up – you might say to yourself “oh, I’ll just paint in my spare time for fun” but ultimately you’ve given up on your dream.
Or, you dreamed of becoming a high-powered executive. You start working in a company and before you get a chance to move up the ranks the company goes out of business. You get another job. This time the people that have been there longer than you always seem to get the promotion. This continues over a few years and you start to lose sight of that dream. You start to accept your position and give up trying to improve it.
There are many more scenarios – I’m sure you can think of some dream you had that you didn’t achieve. And if you trace it back you will probably realise when it was that you stopped dreaming your dream.
How to achieve your dreams
When you find things aren’t going your way, when you notice you’re no longer entertaining the dream you had – that is the time to re-examine the dream.
Think back to when you first had the idea. What was your dream? What did you want to achieve?
Keep doing that until to re-experience the feelings you had at the time – often quite enthusiastic feelings!
Don’t think about why it can’t be done or the things that get in the way – just think about the dream. Before you know it you’ll no longer feel stopped and you’ll see a way forward.
Sometimes it helps to talk to someone about these ideas and dreams. When you talk it over with someone else it gets it out of your head and helps to make it even more visible as a dream. A friend can help you with that. A Life Coach is also good for that and is one of the services I provide.
Keep dreaming the dream!
Dream big dreams! Why not?
These are your dreams. It doesn’t matter if they’re big or small. It doesn’t matter if someone else thinks your dream is impossible – it’s what you think that matters.
And understand that whilst you want to put your best efforts towards achieving your dreams, you also have the option of changing your mind and deciding not to pursue that dream – just make sure it isn’t because you failed and gave up.
You know – when you’re a kid and you decide you want to be a doctor? And then you get to 13 and realise you can’t stand biology or the sight of blood – then you change your mind. That’s okay. We do it all the time.
That’s different than being gradually worn down because of failure upon failure.
What are your dreams?
A good exercise is to look at what dreams you have in the present and write them down. Look at what dreams you had in the past and write them down. See which dreams were realised and which ones weren’t. Review those past dreams and see which ones you would like to “re-log” and start dreaming again!
Remember – YOU create YOUR life and a big part of that is done by dreaming.
If you need some help with your ideas, goals, dreams, get in touch 🙂