Personal Development: What’s Your Dream?
Everyone has a dream, something they want to accomplish, that they fantasize about. There are things that we can be doing to start living our dream now. Figure out what your dream is, what you can be doing to start making that dream come true today, what would it take for you to live your dream, and if you can do this now.
Priscilla Palmer of PriscillaPalmer.com directed me to Neil Sattin’s Reveal Your Dream: A Personal Development Challenge. Here’s my addition:
About 25 years ago there was a pretty bad movie called Angel, about a young woman working the streets in Hollywood. As I recall, it had a kind of vigilante theme. The main thing I remember is that it was really awful. But there was a character who kept showing up, an old man standing on a corner calling out, “Everyone comes to Hollywood got a dream. What’s your dream?”
Okay, that’s the only thing you need to know about that movie. It does make a nice setup, though, for what I want to say.
Everyone’s got a dream, whether they go to Hollywood or not. Everyone has something they long to accomplish, something that they fantasize about when they’re just daydreaming and there’s nothing much going on and they’re wishing they could be somewhere and somewhen else.
So what’s your dream? For some people the dream is fame, for some it’s money, for some it’s freedom from some situation.
I’d like to put forth the proposition that we can live our dream now, that we’re not required to “reach” our goal before we start feeling we’re in the dream.
Let’s take an example. You dream of writing a book. Included in that dream may be the idea of going on Oprah, doing a big author tour, and having lots of fans.
If you start writing your book now, maybe you won’t be on Oprah right now. Maybe you never will. But is the dream about Oprah, or is the dream being an author?
If the dream is really being an author, then get started on it now. Start living the dream of being a writer, instead of just dreaming about it.
This works for any dream, by the way. There are always things we can be doing to start living our dream, instead of just thinking about “someday, when.”
I don’t want to sound like you shouldn’t have dreams, or like you should have achieved your dreams by now. What I’m saying is just that we can be in our dreams much earlier than the point we may think of as “achieving the dream.”
My point here is just this: What’s your dream? What can you do to start making that dream come true today? What would it take for you to live your dream? Can you do it now? I think in most cases we can. I think in many instances we can start living in our dreams while we’re dreaming them, because most dreams are so complex and so interwoven with other things that we can almost always find a way to live at least partially in our dreams.
I think it’s not so much a matter of waiting for or even working for our dreams to come true, but living in our dreams right now, this instance.
What’s my dream? Simple: To always feel that I have enough – right now.
How can you begin to live in your dream today?
- First, what’s your dream? What would you consider “the dream”, above all else?
- What one thing could you do today that would help you live in your dream?
- Do that one thing. Today.
Thanks to Life Insurance Lowdown for including this post in the Carnival of life, Happiness, and Meaning, to Powerful Living for featuring this post in the Personal Development Carnival,to Widow’s Quest for inclusion in the Carnival of Positive Thinking, to Think HappyThoughts for including this in the Happiness Carnival, and to Pink Blocks for featuring this in the Carnival of Personal Power.
My dream is actually to become recognized for my writing. I want to write fiction novels. Sometimes, I start to write a page or two and promise myself to write the rest some other time. I like the part where you clearly separated the dream and the perks that come with the dream.
Jen,
Thanks for sharing your dream. The saying: “We can’t manage what we can’t measure” holds so true. Until we define our dreams in real terms, we have no way of realizing them.
Thank you for participating in Neils challenge. I know I had fun writing my participant post. I hope you did as well. You are absolutely right in saying that we can live our dreams now. You know, I keep putting off that first toastmasters meeting. Your post just reminded me that by speaking there, I really would be “living my dream” now (a part of it at least.
[...] B. Bohl presents Personal Development: What?s Your Dream? posted at Slow Down Fast Today!. Everyone’s got a dream, whether they go to Hollywood or not. [...]
Excellent advise, David.Thanks.
For 20+ years I avoided my dream by writing and hiding away my novels. It was a subconcious fear of how achieving it would affect my life and my self-definition (what if I published my writings and they were good, what would my responsibility be then?!).
Eventually, I became more afraid of what I would become if I never allowed my definition of self to become whole…so I finally published.
What will happen now? Life, and more novels…
CG
[...] David B. Bohl presents Personal Development: What?s Your Dream? posted at Slow Down Fast Today!. He adds, “Everyone’s got a dream, whether they go to [...]
[...] B. Bohl presents Personal Development: What?s Your Dream? posted at Slow Down Fast Today!, saying, “The inspirational message contained here is that [...]
[...] B. Bohl presents Personal Development: What?s Your Dream? posted at Slow Down Fast [...]
I love hearing about other dreams – it gives me inspiration and ideas for myself!
I dream of:
1. owning a modern high tech huge house overlooking the sea
2. writing my autobiography and it becoming a best seller
3. speaking and presenting and sharing my experience and knowledge all over the world
4. taking a year off and travelling around the world with my wife and family
I can also recommend a great book called the Dream Manager by Matthew Kelly.
In “The Dream Manager,” author Matthew Kelly has written a book which is ‘a must read for anyone who desires to help others achieve their dreams’.
Whether you are a manager, leader, mentor or coach this book will help transform the way you relate to others.
Individuals have dreams. The book teaches you to understand the dreams of individuals and then help to fulfil them. The book is a fictional story and I found it very easy to relate my life and experience to the story.
Andrew
Andrew,
Thank you for sharing.
David