I do believe that we all harbour personal dreams.  Some of us have pursued these and are living our dreams.  Most of us are looking at some of us and feeling sorry for ourselves because we think that some of us are most of us.  We wonder how everyone else has managed to live their best life while we are living the ordinary life – paying the bills, raising the children and drinking the wine.

Firstly, the some of us that are living the dream are just like the rest of us and secondly, the rest of us are quite possibly the most of us (and thirdly we just got to stop measuring ourselves against what we see on social media).  I think that we all have the potential to activate something in our lives that will bring greater fulfillment.  There are a lot of us going through the motions while concealing a secret desire to action a thought or idea.  It might be something that we talk about or perhaps have never given life to by naming it out loud.

Why?  Why are we not just doing these things?  It could be pursuing a new hobby or business idea.  It could be training for a marathon or volunteering at an NPO.  It could be the next big thing.

I’m exploring some reasons why I am not actively pursuing the biggest dream on my heart right now.  In my case, I would like to pursue being a writer.  I would like to write with a purpose and write on a regular basis.  Let’s have a look at what is stopping me from living the dream…. (and maybe you living yours)

We are idealists or perfectionists

These are not the same, so I will tackle them individually.  I am an idealist.  It’s quite easy for me to BELIEVE in my dreams, but ACTIVATING them is more of a challenge.  Because I am waiting for the ideal set of circumstances.  I am waiting for one day.  One day I will wake up and have the time and the creative energy and all the inspiration and the words will just flow and I will be drinking fancy coffee sitting at my Pinterest inspired work space and… And every day that I wake up feeling tired and uninspired is not this day.  So I will write next week.
How do I overcome this?  For me, it’s about setting goals.  Small goals that force me to concentrate on developing my skill and not trying to change the world.  It’s about creating accountability and being realistic about what is possible right now.  It’s waking up and allocating as little as half an hour twice a week to this goal (and just committing to it even if I don’t feel inspired or have a Pinterest inspired work space).  I’m remaining idealistic while actually doing something about it in the meantime.  I think the key point here is accountability, in order that I don’t slip back into my ‘next week’ mindset, I have to establish some kind of accountability that allows me to pursue my goals.  These goals must also be totally realistic or I will set myself up for failure.

Then there’s the perfectionist.  You are doing, creating, pursing… but you are not showing it to anyone because you are also waiting for one day.  Your one day is when you achieve the totally over the top perfectionist goals that you have set yourself and even when you reach these you set new ones.  I’m not entirely like you, but I know people like you.  What you probably need to do is remind yourself that you are not working towards some kind of grand launch.  Recognise the process in what you are doing and start by sharing your dream and your achievements with a few people that you trust, believe in their praise and encouragement and consider the next step.

If you are an idealistic perfectionist.  Then good luck with that.

We have children

Maybe you are reading this and it’s not children you have but it’s something else.  A career, a social life, a new marriage, an old marriage… There’s something that might be demanding you to make sacrifices when it comes to your personal dreams and desires.

I have children.  Children can literally consume every singe second of every waking moment (and many of the non-waking moments) of our days.  If we let them.  Yes, we can’t avoid much of the nurturing and attention that they demand from us, and we shouldn’t.  But there will come a time in our journeys as mothers when we can choose ourselves again.  We can choose to believe that our children will even be the better for it.  When this happens, it’s time to acknowledge that servanthood to our children while sacrificing personal dreams won’t bring personal fulfillment.  And maybe more importantly, we DESERVE personal fulfillment and perhaps the world deserves our contribution to it beyond our sacrifice of motherhood.  What dreams and ideas are you keeping secret mama?

We doubt ourselves

I have been thinking about this.  I think that we all experience some form of self-doubt.  It’s essentially a good thing, it makes us vulnerable and it helps us to weigh our dreams realistically (although we should never be realistic about dreams).  What we need to be able to do however, is get over ourselves.  We live in a world where we have the potential to reach and discover our own kind, our own audiences and even our own fanbases.  We don’t have to be the best at what we dream of achieving, we just need to be willing to contribute and connect.  I believe that through this we can find great fulfillment and joy.  The first step is to simply put ourselves ‘out there’.  We don’t need an audience or a fanbase in order to do what we love doing, but we might even discover these when we pursue an authentic dream with consistency and passion.  We will at least discover our kind.

We don’t have time

But actually we do.  We have it, we have been blessed with time.  It’s just that we spend it thoughtlessly.  Sometimes we give it away, afraid to say ‘no, this time is for me’.  Sometimes we idle it away because we feel spent.  This is okay even, different seasons require different rhythms but in all seasons lets at least take a step back and consider how we could be making more space for the lives we want to live.

I hope that you feel encouraged to remind yourself of, or to keep pushing towards your personal dreams.  We will all find ourselves at different stages of actualising these dreams.  There’s nothing more wonderful in this world to me than watching someone do what they love.  We wish it for our children no doubt, let’s start wishing it for ourselves too.