How to design the life you want, one dream at a time
If you want to change some aspect of your life, do you rely on goal setting to make those improvements? Or do you allow yourself to dream and wish for a better future?
Whenever you set a goal, you understand that the purpose is to create an outline for something specific, and often with a specific date set as part of the plan. In contrast, dreams can be more elusive and unclear, as details can be vague and the time frame for the development of ideas is likely to be unknown. While goals are based on reality, or the here and now, a dream is thought of being “there” somewhere, in an indefinite place in time.
Because goals are grounded in reality, you may feel limited in the scope of your ideas when thinking long-term. This is especially true for SMART goals, which are supposed to be specific, realistic and measurable. If you know you need to set a timeline to complete a new result, outcome, or change in any part of your life, are you likely to envision something too big, risky, unspecified, and/or undefined? For most people, the answer is no, and this is where the idea of dreaming is needed.
With a dream, you can free yourself from the constraints and shackles of time constraints, as a starting point. If there is something that is very important for you to change, and you cannot clearly define what it is, perhaps you should start by dreaming. Imagine that there are no limits, with unlimited access to anything you would like to achieve, and nothing stands in the way of you making changes in your life. What would that look like? How would that feel? This is how you can use dreams as fuel and create a plan to make it happen. What follows will help you create your own dreams.
The reality of here versus looking “there”
Every time you think about where you’d like to be, what you’d like to have, or the changes you’d like to make, you’re thinking of a new reality that’s somewhere “out there” in an unknown period of time. If you are not setting goals and just dreaming of this new possibility or future it can feel like a huge gap between where you are now as this is reality and in the here and now you may have no idea how you can create or develop what you have imagined. While setting goals seems to be the fastest method of bridging the gap, the real problem is the gap between reality and the desired future, no matter how far in the future it may be. It is that division that can cause unhappiness.
The here and now: In your current reality, you are usually told to “face facts”. This often translates to something to do with, this is who you are or will be or will be or become. Perhaps you have tried to get ahead in life or in your career and have failed. It is possible that time has passed and now you feel too old to make changes. Or your life may feel stagnant and stuck in a rut. You might also feel like this is all you’ve ever known and probably where you’ll always be, whether it applies to a situation, relationship, or the like.
Looking out somewhere: A new future, with an improved life, can seem distant, unattainable and/or impossible to reach. You may believe, based on what others have told you, that in order to make the necessary changes or become the person you know you need to be; it will require more talent, knowledge, skills, good looks, or just plain good luck than you have or will ever acquire. Somewhere “there” represents the idea of a normal life that you have never felt or experienced. It looks like hope, promise and the future where dreams come true.
Why life here and now creates unhappiness
If you feel a sense of satisfaction with your life now and have no further ambitions or desire to change any aspect of your life, then looking to the future will not be in your interest. But like most people, there is something in the future that is desired. It is the divide between the here and now, and the desired future state, that can create a growing sense of unhappiness, especially if a significant amount of time passes and the future seems still further away.
The easiest answer may be goal setting, which is supposed to be specific in nature. But how can you say with certainty what the future should or could be, if you haven’t yet dreamed or allowed yourself to explore possibilities? As long as you feel a division, a separation within yourself between “here” and “there”, you will always have the possibility of feeling restlessness. The first thing to do is determine the origin of this division and ask yourself why the here and now is so unsatisfactory. Is it about escaping or running away from a problematic situation?
As you begin to explore how you feel now, also ask yourself about the future and why it feels so appealing that the here and now begins to feel mundane. Is your life so bad right now that you can’t find reasons to be happy? Looking into the future, while dreaming, should be a matter of wanting to create something new, do something more with your life, work towards an achievement, set a new path, develop new results, etc. If dreaming is only used as an attempt to fix unhappiness, this will not be a recipe for success. You won’t know what happiness feels like if you start from a place of unhappiness.
How to design the life you want, one dream at a time
One of the most effective methods for crossing the line between where you are now and where you want to be is to start with a mindset of acceptance. You accept this moment in time, and everything leading up to it, as something that taught you important lessons. What this also means is that you understand the person you are now, and the situation you find yourself in in your life now, doesn’t have to stay the way it is. The future is yours to create, and it will be what you hope, desire, aspire to be, or seek as an ideal.
dream cycle
To design the life you want, something different than you ever thought possible before, you can take your dream and use the following cycle to nurture it and then bring it to life.
conceived: Imagination is the fuel of your dreams. Use the images to collectively visualize a limitless future, like anything you want to create or achieve. You may have a dream or vision of something you want to change, or you may visualize numerous changes occurring throughout your life.
Writes: Once you have the images in mind, take some time to put words to what you are visualizing. You can start by simply free-writing ideas and describing details, using a process similar to brainstorming. What this does is help you start to clarify what you want to focus on first as a priority.
Feel: Once you have put your ideas in writing, you can begin to experience what it would be like to achieve or bring about the realization of those dreams by attaching feelings to images and words. When you become emotionally attached to the images and feel the dreams in a way that makes you happy, it will make you want to do something to make it come true.
Values: By the time you have worked through your dream, to the point where you feel it could happen for you, and have experienced the feeling that it is happening to you through the power of your mind, taking action will feel like the next logical step. He passed. Since your dream may be complex and you may have more than one dream, the best method for developing a plan of action is to find a starting point. This means reviewing what you have written and determining what can be done to get started, or what will allow you to create a plan of action and then develop the first steps.
believe: The last and most important step in the dream cycle is the stage where you believe that the new future can and will be yours, regardless of the magnitude of the change or changes you want to make in your life. Believe that this new future can be yours, and through this sustained belief you will stand firm in your plan of action, despite any doubts or challenges that may arise.
Your life, your plan, your result
What I want you to always remember is this: when you think about where you are now, compared to where you want to be or who you want to become, it is your life that you must create. There is a simple mantra you can enunciate: I am in control of my future. How do you exercise this control? It is done one dream at a time.
Take a dream, give it words and feelings, then take some form of action. But always believe in the possibilities. Will every result you want happen exactly how you want it? That will be determined over time. You can always adjust and refine your action plan as needed; however, you can always keep your dreams alive.
Dreaming sounds like something you can do if you don’t face reality. But your mind is a powerful source of inspiration and an inexhaustible resource of ideas that you can draw on. If you can learn to harness this power, do you know how you can change your life?
What it means to dream is to engage your imagination, use the power of your mind and visualize a future where you have achieved something you want for your life. This can be anything beyond what you have imagined before, even if you are afraid to imagine such possibilities. If you allow yourself to visualize, express, and feel what you dream, you will reach a point where acting is the next logical step.
The life you want depends on no one but you. When you have your mind clearly focused on a dream and you have determined the design of your life, nothing can stand in your way except disbelief, doubt or fear. Can you imagine how your life could change when you decide to embrace faith, determination and nothing but possibilities? It all starts inside your mind; an endless landscape where dreams are created and your life is transformed.