Posted on 01 Jul, 2009 -
It’s Time to Live Your Dream…
Could you still have a chance to live your dream if you are not already?
Words of advice to help your soar to higher higher heights
Not sure of what your dream or dreams are? Then try answering these four questions to rekindle your longing, interests or urge for creativity
When researching for my article about work and happiness last week, I was struck by this paragraph I found in the book How to Simplify Your Life by Tiki Kustenmacher:
“Every person has a dream, a longing that seems more certain to him or her than reality. It is a vision that is clearer than everything you see before you. Most people lose sight of their life’s dream. They don’t trust it. They let people talk them out of it. They let go of it because people have told them they must.”
Not only did this fit nicely in with the whole question of whether one gets sufficient satisfaction from ones work or not - but also with the book I have been reading recently about the personal future-improving techniques of Logotherapy.
Forget your past. Put your energy into the wonderful FUTURE ahead of you
Unlike a lot of schools of therapy or counselling that help you explore or analyse your past, the Logotherapy school is more concerned with helping you steer in the right directions into your future.
What people really hunger for in their lives, says originator Viktor Frankl, is a sense of meaning. When many people get lost in life or turn to therapy for help, it is often because the work they’re doing or situation they’re in have lead them to feel a lack of true meaning or worthwhileness in life.
During work with a logotherapy therapist or counsellor, “the typical self-centredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced.” People are helped to look outside of themselves and at their external lives to rediscover an involvement and an exciting engagement with life that makes them feel good again.
DON’T keep those dreams hidden away in the dark. Give them SOME light at least!
Each and every one of us has had dreams in our lives. And yes we ALL still have the ability to live our lives in a way to help us satisfy our dreams.
Sure, you may be too old to become an international footballer or a ballerina - or not in a position to retrain to work with tigers or become a world-famous artist. But does that have to mean we let those dreams drop completely?
Couldn’t the football enthusiast get involved with training youngsters - or treat themselves to a trip to a live game every so often? And it is never too late to create works of art, to attend adult dancing classes or go on a safari.
As the inventor Thomas Edison (who was almost deaf apparently) said, “If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.”
Our fear is not that we will be no good, but how good we believe we could actually be if given a chance.
Advice for those with very big dreams…
So how do we go about living our dream?
“Firstly” says writer Paul Arden, “you need to aim beyond what you are capable of. You must develop a complete disregard for where your abilities end. Try to do the things that you are incapable of… If you think you’re incapable of running a company, make that your aim. If you think you’re unable to be on the cover of Time magazine, make it your business to be there.” (From It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be)
“As a teenager, Victoria Beckham’s ambition was not just to be better than her mates or even a famous singer but to become a world brand. She not only dreamed about it, but wanted it enough to go about getting it. That in itself makes her different from most of us.
“It’s not how good she was that mattered, it’s how good she wanted to be. What is interesting in her quote is that she didn’t compare herself with George Michael or Mariah Carey, rather she saw the fame of Persil Automatic as her yardstick. Laugh at it as you may, it’s this highly original imagination that got her where she is today.”
Advice for those whose dreams are slightly smaller…
Now, while I believe that the first paragraph above should be relevant for all human beings, we do not all dream of being world-class, world-famous or world-leading.
Some of us may have dreams that are no more high-reaching than the desire to actually live more of our lives fully, peacefully and richly than spending too much of our time working or chasing our tails.
Or perhaps you would like to do some kind of crafts, some kind of sport or join an activity group such as amateur dramatics? Or maybe your hankering is for a change of career? Or for that lifetime holiday, safari or cruise?
Then go ahead and do it! Because life is too short not to. And the biggest risk of all is not taking any risks!
(See a few paragraphs below for some practical steps to get you started on the track.)
What if you’re not sure what your dream is right now?
Not all of us, of course, are in touch with what our inner dreams might be. Perhaps they have changed since we were young? Or we have got so used to just doing what we have to do for our families and survival that we have stopped believing that we can even have them?
If you’re not sure what your dreams are then have a go at answering the following questions:
What would you do if you won £1 million?
What would you do if somebody said they would pay for you to restudy for a new career for the next four years including living costs?
What would you do if you lost your current job?
What would you do if you had six months to live?
Get ready for action. Steps towards your dream
Once you have clarified to yourself what your dream is, it can be all too easy to just let it drop or allow it to continue to skulk around always in the background in your life.
If you can, do what you can to bring it into the foreground.
Create a clear vision of what it is you want to do. You should get to a stage when you can visualise scenes of yourself living your dream in your head.
Why it may pay to put the cart before the horse! I particularly like the advice given by Feng Shui expert Jonathan Mead about changing the environment around you in order to create a new direction in your life or trait of behaviour.
If you want to write a novel, for example he says, arrange your room and computer so that it becomes that of a novelist. If you want to bring more music into your life, rearrange your house so that musical instruments or CDs are more prominent or have a composer of the week spot. If you want to live your life in a different style then change your home to reflect that style. If you would love to set up your own online business then set up a room that is ready for that business.
Create a roadmap into the future towards that dream. One method of doing this might be to work backwards instead of forwards. So for example you ask yourself what the last step would be before attaining your goal. And then what would the step before that have been and so on and so on until you know right now what your first step needs to be.
Do research. Do searches on Google. Go to the library reference department and look at books about careers. Look for adverts in the local newspapers. Ask around your friends.
“But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams”
William B Yeats
“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Dreams come true; without that possibility, nature would not incite us to have them.”
John Updike
