“Someday” Dreams Become Reality: First Step
Have you ever caught yourself saying, “Someday I would like to….”
What are those things?
Consider writing those thoughts down.
There are many things that fulfill our hearts. But….”someday dreams” can also be just simple preparation dreams for the “what ifs” in life. “Someday, I would love to be able to pay for my grand children’s education.” “Someday, I would love to have the means to travel even after retirement.” “Someday, I would love to remodel my kitchen.” “If something happens, I would like to have in place x, y, z.” “Someday, I would like to purchase some land to have a garden and some goats.” Whatever it is….just write it down. Nobody has to critique your thoughts. This is simply writing down thoughts.
After my husband, Michael, retired from the U.S. Air Force and we were settled in our new location, he encouraged me to write down my someday dreams. He was excited that we could look to design our next chapter of life and how we would get there.
Design our life? Really? This may sound silly, but I could not bring myself to do it….I felt it was ridiculous. I was a teacher. He was now a retired officer. That was that.
It was difficult to allow myself to even think about “someday” dreams. I was a bit of a realist and never visualized that I possibly could have control over increasing our portfolio and could literally achieve what I always said, “Well, someday I would like to….” .
I had the limiting thought pattern that this was my deck of cards and don’t be shuffling it. I loved our life. I was totally content. Don’t mess with my happy little world. So what if potential dreams were being blown away in the wind.
He asked if I had ever thought about how we were designed and that maybe we were limiting our God given talents.
My stubborn Norwegian DNA would not allow myself to consider designing anything away from my present safe world of routine and comfort.
This was my excuse. I was satisfied being routine and comfortable.
I went through the motions of listing my dreams since it seemed so important to Michael, but as I have communicated before, my motivation was all about fulfillment not earning potential and for goodness sakes, not about planning for “just in case” or for our retirement.
Years later a friend’s husband died (in his 40s) and she was left without life insurance or a financial plan and she had young children. It made me take a desperate breath. We don’t know the future. Routine and comfortable could possibly change.
Suddenly I realized, I NEEDED to be part of the PLAN for our own financial future and retirement portfolio and maybe I could help other women know the importance of taking their someday dreams seriously.
It started with a list. Security as a core value started to grow within my heart. I needed to step up and shuffle my cards! My comfortable world needed a proactive wake up call.
My thinking went from being REACTIVE to now being PROACTIVE!
Michael was right. Planning is prudent. I needed to be an active part in designing our life but more than that….I NOW wish to encourage all individuals that they can design and own their own life. A life filled with meaning, one that is planned and one that happily goes beyond routine and comfortable.
Do you want to build your own dreams….or are you building someone else’s?
Go ahead. List them. It’s an empowering step to designing your life.
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If you are considering a “how to” vehicle for living out your someday dreams, we would be happy to share why we chose the business model we did to build the major piece of our plan. We considered many vehicles to achieve our plan. Our plan has moved beyond what I allowed myself to dream originally. I implore you too…. write your someday dreams down. It’s the first step to creating a plan to live out your life the way you wish to design it!
Next post: Someday Dreams: Second Step Matching Core Values with Your Vehicle
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