Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I hope this January issue finds you poised and
postured toward 2006 with hopeful hearts and open minds,
ripe and ready to embrace the possibilities of a new
year! It seems fitting that we begin this year’s first
issue of this newsletter with the timely topic of “Being
True to Our Dreams”.
As you may recall from our last issue entitled,
“Harnessing the Power of a Worthy Dream”, I wrote about
the ways in which dreams are necessary to life and
essential to our on-going growth as individuals. (See
the link provided at the end of this article.) I laid
out in the Putting Into Practice section of that issue
seven guidelines for discerning the “worthy dream”, that
which is deserving of the investment of our focused time
and energy. In summary, the worthy dream has the
following characteristics:
- It is within the realm of our control.
- It is broader and more expansive than a goal.
- It comes from your own deep well of desire.
- It is something that you would later regret not
having pursued.
- It has enough juice to stir your passion and fire
your enthusiasm.
- It reflects your primary values and priorities.
- It is worth sacrificing and working hard for, even
at the expense of your comfort, convenience, or
immediate gratification.
Identifying one’s true desires is not an easy
process. As many of you wrote to me, discerning the
dream that is worthy and deserving of our heart’s
attention can be a serious undertaking. Yet our work is
not done in simply identifying the worthy dream. What we
know about people whose dreams come true is that they
don’t sit on the sidelines and wait for things to happen
- they are serious about being true to their own dreams!
Despite our culture’s well-earned reputation for
encouraging instant gratification, we are not encouraged
to act decisively upon our dreams. Think about it. We
are taught from early on to think deliberate on them,
doubt them, question and second-guess them. Can you
recall a time as a child when in the throes of sharing
your heart’s desire with an adult you were reminded to
be realistic, pragmatic and sensible? Or how about when
your dream is met with, “Sounds great – but don’t be
quittin’ you day job!” We are trained to talk ourselves
out of committing to our dreams. We have learned to
hesitate at crossing the threshold to our aspirations,
encouraged to wait until we know precisely how it will
look on the other side, how it will manifest, what it
will cost, and what kind of warranty it will carry.
Here’s the problem: we are, in effect, asking for a
guarantee of our success before we have taken the single
most important step necessary to insure it: our
commitment to it.
The truth remains that until we move in the direction
of our dream by acting on it, we are only “dreaming”.
Dreams, on their own, have a will-o’-the-wisp quality.
It is only when we couple the beauty of a dream with the
firm intention to make it happen, that begins to take on
a reality that is sturdy and strong. The fisherman’s
dream of the ‘big catch’ only becomes real when he baits
the hook and throws his line in the water. Likewise, we
begin to “reel” in our dreams when we toss out the
baited hook of intention. When we shift our thinking
from “I’d love to” to “I’m going to”, we begin taking
ownership and responsibility for the dream coming true.
We shift from the world of hope and possibility to faith
and probability, from victim to victor. By using the
words, “I will” we throw a switch, and we begin coming
true to the dream! Here are some thoughts on what it
means to be true to our dreams, particularly those which
prompt and inspire us to live lives larger and deeper
than we would without them.
1. Being true to a dream requires commitment and
responsibility!
Committing to a dream means we’ve picked a lane. Life
is no longer a smorgasbord, sampling here and there – we
are choosing the menu. By committing we are taking the
element of choice out of the equation – we have made a
decision. With the commitment to a dream, it doesn’t
just become a part of our life plan, it becomes part of
our identity. In being true to the dream, we are really
being true to ourselves and who we have decided to
become. When a person’s dream to write a book becomes a
commitment to scratching out the first chapter, the one
who has heretofore been a dreamer becomes a writer.
Signing up for tennis classes, the dreamer transforms
herself into a novice tennis player.
Often it feels better to just keep our options open,
to keep the quest for our future unfolding on a
spiritual plane. That is because, as William Butler
Yeats suggested, “In dreams begins responsibility.”
Having made a commitment to a dream, we take on
responsibility to it and are willing to make sacrifices
for it. In committing to their dreams, the writer must
write, even when words fail him, and the novice tennis
player must show up for lessons even when she’d rather
snuggle up in front of the television. Perhaps that is
what is at the heart of our reluctance to make
commitments – the fact that we are then responsible to
and accountable for something that trumps our comfort
and convenience. Commit to a dream and we are required
to follow through and make continual sacrifices.
Sacrifice is inherent in committing to a dream because
we only follow one at the expense of another. Doors will
close on a million lovely possibilities just as the
commitment to a dream opens others.
2. We bring a dream into reality by treating it as
real!
If we want a dream to come true, we have to act as if
we are serious about attaining it! We have to wield a
presence that reflects our deep intention to the dream,
adopt a mindset that supports its fruition, and assume a
posture that reminds ourselves and the world that we are
committed to it. The quickest and most obvious way to do
that is to act on the dream, even if with the tiniest of
steps: sending for a catalog of law schools, joining a
political campaign, putting down the deposit for a
spring retreat, applying for a business license,
researching web-sites around the country similar to the
one you want to develop, etc. For some, the very
articulating, labeling and naming of the dream is the
first act of being true to it. When we speak a dream
aloud it rings like a bell that cannot be unrung. Often
those to whom we have declared the dream begin sharing
it with us and hold us to it. (I recently shared with
participants of a workshop in New Brunswick that I plan
on learning French and living up to the name
“Bissonnette”. I left that conversation realizing that I
had just taken the first step in realizing that dream by
speaking my intention to follow through on it. Once
we’ve shared it with other people, we become somehow
beholden to it.)
With each small step taken, even the sharing and
naming of a dream, we bring it from the realm of
imagination into the world of reality! We have to fight
the temptation to put off that first step, waiting for
the right moment when the proverbial planets are in
proper alignment or when we awaken to fiery resolve and
steely confidence. What we know from experience is that
we have to act in a way that will bring us confidence
and resolve! It only makes sense that the more we take
action, the more confident we become in our ability to
take action. I could only grow into my dream of training
job developers by standing in front of job developers
and training, albeit with shaky knees. I have long been
a believer in the idea of “acting our way into a new way
of thinking” rather than “trying to think our way into a
new way of acting”. As Freidrich Engles put it, “One
ounce of action is worth a ton of theory!”
3. In acting on a dream, remember what it is you are
Acting-On.
Isn’t it interesting that the term “Action” contains
within it the immediate directive to ACT-ON. What is it
we are acting on when taking a step toward a dream?
Among other things, we are act on vision, intuition and
values; we act on desire, passion and a sense of
purpose. Some say that dreamers act on “blind faith”. To
the contrary, I think that faith is far from blind – it
is often farseeing and visionary. Think about the times
in your life when you stepped out on faith in yourself
and risked possible failure in order to go for a dream
or to make a necessary change in your life. Perhaps you
were not privy to all the facts, or able to predict the
many details of the situation that would later unfold.
What you were able to see and trust in, however, was
your ability to step up to the plate and overcome the
odds, whatever they might have been. When we act on the
worthy dream, we are acting on faith in ourselves and in
the wider world to which we belong both physically and
spiritually.
4. It is our active participation in a dream that
triggers support for it!
Have you ever noticed that once you commit to and act
on a dream, the ways and means to bring it into fruition
appear? Like the would-be artist who after committing to
her craft by investing in supplies, overhears the owner
of the neighborhood coffee shop complain about needing
to do something about that blank wall! Or my friend in
Toronto who after giving notice to her landlord in
pursuit of an apartment that would allow pets, found a
large studio in a building whose manager was looking for
a home for a six week old pup?
We all have our own stories of how the world somehow
accommodates us once we go out on a limb for the fruit
of our dreams. It is when we actively participate in the
actualization of our dreams, that we set things in
motion and the people and events around us resonate
toward our fiery resolve. Some call it coincidence or
chance, others call it serendipity or destiny, but few
would argue that the world somehow conspires and
supports those who boldly match their dreams with their
deeds. Nowhere is the phenomenon better described than
in the much celebrated passage by Johann Wolfgang von
Goethe: “Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the
chance to draw back … The moment one definitely commits
oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things
occur that help one that would never otherwise have
occurred… boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
Begin it now.”
5. We begin harnessing the dream with small steps and
a plan.
Sometimes we feel overwhelmed by the largeness of a
dream, paralyzed by its seeming enormity. At that point
it is important to focus on those aspects of a dream in
which we have control in order to harness it, for
example, the scope of the dream, the speed and timing of
your plan, and the size of the steps you decide to take.
(e.g., acting on the dream to grow a thriving private
practice, you may initiate meetings with fellow
practitioners in your community with the goal of
scratching out a game plan by April, or commit to
developing three paying customers by June. In responding
to your longing to travel the world, you might decide to
gather information on various tours to Italy by May,
join a local travel club tomorrow, or begin putting $100
a month away for a dream trip to India in 2010.)
We just need to couple the largeness of our dream
with the small, concrete and do-able “next right
nothing”. As we take the next small step, the bigger
steps move a notch closer to us, downsizing as they
move. If we keep on take small enough “next steps”, we
begin chipping away at and miniaturizing what feels like
the huge risks that come with following a dream. While
we know it is lovely to carry noble intentions, to
entertain big thoughts, and to dream worthy dreams, it
is far more important to do noble things, to take even
the smallest courageous step. In the end, I don’t think
we lack the strength, the inspiration or the know-how to
be true to our dreams - what we lack is the will and
discipline to follow through on them.
Fortunately for us, one of the characteristics of a
“worthy dream” is that it refuses to be put-off. It will
nag at us, pull at our heart strings, keep us up at
night, and be there to greet you in the morning. It
simply refuses to be silenced and it will resonate like
a sure song in our heart. We must not postpone the
worthy dream, for in the grand scheme of things, our
lives are but a blink of an eye and tomorrow is not
promised. By being true to our dreams we are being true
to ourselves and to one another. When we muster the
courage to act on our dreams and reach for the highest
in our selves, the people around us feel called to their
highest as well. Let us act as beacons in the world as
those brave enough to live their dreams!
Here’s to the “magic of boldness”…
~ Denise
© Denise Bissonnette, January 2006 (If not used for
commercial purposes, this article may be reproduced, all
or in part, providing it is credited to "Denise
Bissonnette, Diversity World - www.diversityworld.com."
If included in a newsletter or other publication, we
would appreciate receiving a copy.)
Read Denise's previous newsletter...
