ABC of Life… Dream

My post for the ABC’s of life – Dream – is long over due. I could blame it on the amazing Portland weather or my friends or my family that I have been spending time with, but really I wasn’t sure where to start. I feel that I have too many dreams right now, I’m not sure where to begin, but the point is, I have to begin somewhere.

My favorite quote is by Anais Nin, “Dreams are necessary to life.” Dreams are what motivate us, they are what drive us.  Without them, our lives are almost purposeless and I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have even a single dream. I know I have many dreams running through my head at any given time, but then there are always a million reasons why not to do them. This is why dreams don’t come true – we get in our own way sometimes. Dreams come true when we act in ways to make them come true, not when we don’t believe in ourselves.

I believe we get exactly what we ask for, both negative and positive, but I believe it’s because we act in ways to make it happen. Everything might not look exactly the way we planned it or last as long as we had hoped for, but if we try hard enough and work hard enough then we can have what we want. Some advice I will offer is, be careful what you ask for. Our minds are powerful forces and when used purposefully, positively we can create our lives to be what we want them to be, but when we allow those negative thoughts to intervene, our dreams can stagnate or go away all together.

Of all my childhood dreams, two have come true. I moved to the northwest and I am working in events. I still have some of my dreams, but many of them have changed. As a child I dreamed of becoming a mom and having 7 kids. That is sheer insanity, so am I thankful that this dream did not come true? Absolutely! 7 kids? Was I mad? Now, I have a reasonable dream of having one, possibly two, children with a wonderful man who I have yet to meet and don’t mind waiting, because I have a million other dreams to try to achieve right now. I put a few other dreams to rest from my childhood – I am not an astronaut and I have no intention of becoming the president of the United States anymore. But my dreams of owning my own business, writing a book, volunteering abroad, and traveling the world are all dreams that I still have, but my struggle is, where do I start? Which in reality is exactly why I’ve been avoiding this post.

The answer is, there is no one place to start, we just have to start and take it one step at a time. Here are important things I believer we should keep in mind to make our dreams come true:

• Take a leap, a step, anything to get started – things in motion tend to stay in motion, it’s physics!
• Be persistent, because there are always forces that can get in our way, life: friends, family, unforeseen events, ourselves
• Be resilient, for when those life events happen or we aren’t successful at first, we get knocked down, but we need to pick ourselves up and keep going
• Stay determined, dreams can die amazingly fast if we aren’t determined to make them happen
• Believe in ourselves
• Move through life courageously
• Maintain flexibility, because sometimes our dreams are meant to shift and change (Otherwise, I’d have 7 kids and that’s just not even an option… ever)

I wish there was some magic formula that we just did x,y, and z and our dreams automatically came true, but our dreams aren’t always easy to make come true. The secret is to never stop having them and never stop working toward them.