22 Is it realistic to dream?
I spend a lot of time as a coach and trainer trying to crowbar people’s minds open long enough to allow them to dream for themselves. We are brought up to be deeply suspicious of dreams. Not the dreams we have when we sleep, but the dreams we can imagine for our future in the real world, beyond our current experience. We often react to each other’s dreams for the future as if they are nonsense – as if we are completely mad to think bigger for ourselves.
And yet, imagining what is not yet there is one of the key characteristics of being human. It is how we have created everything we have created since the time we lived in caves. We imagine it, then we make it. It couldn’t – if you think about it – be more natural to us. It couldn’t be more realistic.
So why, the minute we come up with a new possibility, a new idea or dream, do most of us immediately talk ourselves out of it? And if we don’t quite manage to do it ourselves we tell our families or friends about it – and they are only too happy to list the 101 reason it couldn’t possibly work!
Look around you, look at all the things that humans have invented, created, made happen. Is it not AT LEAST as likely that your dreams are possible, as not?
When it comes to making it happen in reality, it does make it easier to start if you believe in your dreams. However, as I said in another blog you don’t have to believe that it is going to work out, to start taking action. You just need to believe it is possible and you have to genuinely want it enough to put in the effort required.
If you really want to find out if your dreams are realistic:
- Do as much research as you can to find evidence either way. Never make a decision on research alone. Research can only ever tell you about what has been done in the past. This can be unreliable as a predictor of what can be done in the future.
- Since you have no proof if your dreams are possible, as long as they are theoretically possible, your job is to take action to make them happen. It is the only logical way to find out if they will work out.
- The outcome is not completely in your control. The actions you choose to take, are. It will either work out or it won’t. Be proud of yourself either way. Be proud of yourself for having a dream and having the guts to go for it.