Dream big! The lesson of childhood. Embrace the unknown, explore, wander, daydream. My neighbor, Sarah, and I regularly gathered underneath the apple tree growing in the meadow in front of our houses. I have vivid memories of detailed planning for an apartment we were going to construct. First, in an underground bunker we’d dig in the bare dirt patch at the base of the tree. Second, in the branches of the tree, which we regularly climbed. We envisioned the separate living spaces and ‘fancy’ layout of our magical dream pad. Barbie’s dreamhouse paled in comparison. We couldn’t have been more than 4 or 5 years old.
Though we valiantly dug in that dirt, and gazed skyward, our outdoor living spaces never came to be.
Why our dreams fade
But we had the dream, and we stuck with it. In the end, someone likely told us the infeasibility of our plan and it faded out of our minds. Children dream big. They can see what adults view as impossible because they haven’t been conditioned to believe otherwise. With the intent of protecting our kids from the heartache of disappointment, we gently squash their plans and keep them safe.
Slowly, year by year, we’re guided to reduce risk. Gently nudged towards a mindset of certainty. I’ll raise my hand and acknowledge that’s where I landed, in the sea of certainty. Trained to consider risk and minimize it in my decision making. Though I’ve rebelled against that thought pattern in some respects, my athletic pursuits for example, I’m staunchly in the camp when it comes to decisions that involve my own entrepreneurial spirit and stepping to the side of a traditional career.
Whose voice is squashing your dreams?
During a meditation and mindfulness workshop this morning, it dawned on me that the frustration I felt about my glacial paced activity to grow different aspects of my career wasn’t frustration at all. At the root of it was the judgement I imputed upon myself. The voice in my head wasn’t my own, it was the voice of authority telling me how foolish it would be to branch out. To step into a space of trusting my intuition and having faith in the process. Judgement for stepping outside of certainty.
And it made me think about how often we kill our own dreams before they have a chance to fully develop. Before they are ready to fly. When we have uncertainty about the outcome the tendency is to revert to planning. To engineer the risk out of the dream, making it benign enough that the risks are minimal. We wait for unspoken permission to pursue our own dreams. We shift from big sky dreaming to vanilla…and not even Madagascar vanilla…boring, plain vanilla.
What’s the fun of that?
Making space for dreaming
Embracing Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Living Guidepost of letting go of certainty and embracing intuition and faith, touches more than one area of our lives. It permeates throughout. We are not meant to be kept on a shelf, wrapped up neat and tidy. Think about a dream of your own, one that you set aside because you had to be “responsible.” Or that was risky. What did you gain by postponing or dropping it? What would you have gained by pursuing it? And…if you pursued it and it didn’t work out, what’s the worst that would have happened?
Imagine you allowed yourself to play through a dream or desire that churns inside you. What would be different in your life a year from now? Don’t get stuck in how to get there, dream. Allow your mind to go to the natural conclusion. Once you have that dream fully formed? Do it. Seriously. Stay focused on the end goal and move forward, one step at a time. The truth is you might only know the first couple steps. That’s ok. Start there and the rest will unfold at the time it’s supposed to. Be open, be curious, trusting your intuition.
I believe in you. The voices that tell you otherwise can take a hike, they are not living your life. You can keep waking up each day with unlived dreams or you can embrace them. Give yourself permission to pursue your dreams! We’re on the journey together friends. Be brave.