Don’t Forget the Art of Dreaming

Recently I was asked what I would do with my life if nothing else mattered – if I had no academic or professional responsibilities, no financial barriers or worries, no strings tying me to any place or any commitment. If I could choose any destiny for my life, what would it be? 

As I began to think about this question and envision what my dream life would look like, the alarm bells started ringing and my consciousness was overcome with thoughts that my dreams are too big, too out there, too impossible; that my dreams should stay as they are, just dreams.  

Throughout childhood, we are constantly told to dream big. Our teachers, parents, and soccer coaches tell us that we can do whatever we set our minds to; that the world is our oyster and we have every opportunity to make our lives exactly how we want them to be. But, as we get older and move through school, jobs and relationships, that dream big mentality seems to dim and reality begins to settle in. All of a sudden it feels childish or irrational to dream our biggest dreams. Our dreams begin to resemble fantasies, belonging to another lifetime or to someone else who is more capable, more outgoing, more knowledgeable, or more eloquently spoken. Almost subconsciously it seems, we find ourselves settling for things that the world tells us is more within our reach or a more reasonable goal. Whether we settle because we are making sacrifices for our personal relationships or commitments or because we have been dealt an unfortunate hand that makes it more difficult to take the steps that would bring us closer to our ambitions, over time, we let go of our dreams and turn our attention to things that seem more practical or reasonable. 

For me, one of the reasons I tend to let my biggest and brightest dreams go by the wayside, is because it feels vulnerable to have these dreams, and even more so to share these dreams with anyone, especially those who could help me to achieve these aspirations. There is an incredible fear of judgement and failure that comes with chasing after your dreams. What if you announce your dreams to the world and then fail? What if I ask all of these people to help me achieve my goals and then I let them down? What if my dream is not everything I made it out to be? 

Falling into an endless cycle of “what ifs” is easy, which makes it something we need to stay mindful of. Rather than thinking of all of the negative “what ifs”, shift them to be positive: What if I achieved my dream and it was everything I could have imagined and more? What if by achieving my dream, I was able to make the world a better place? What if I enjoyed the journey towards achieving my dream as much as the outcome? 

The people in our lives who we look up to are those that consistently worked toward their goals and never gave up on their dreams. At a certain point, they became so invested in making their dreams a reality that they stopped caring what people would think about them if they failed and just tried. That's not to say there weren't bumps in the road or major setbacks along their journey, but when they encountered these obstacles, they didn’t turn the other way, they faced them head-on. They didn’t second guess themselves when the inevitable “what ifs” began to creep into their minds. They didn’t listen when people told them they were crazy or that they would never be successful. Like a child who sees the world as being full of possibility, they never stopped dreaming.