Turn Your Dreams into Goals

(Part 1)

Chasing Dreams

Have you been playing by the rules? Are you the responsible one? Has space opened up in your life, or in your heart? Do you want something different in your life? 

Do you want something more, but you don’t know what? Are you ready to chase some dreams?

Gather all your dreams together.

Let’s start by creating an inventory of all your dreams. We’ll cast the net wide, include the practical and the impractical, the dreams we dreamed as kids, and the new ones that are emerging. 

Start at the very beginning. What dream lit you up as you lay on your back, looking up at the sky, after a summer swim? When you first discovered the freedom of getting on your bike, where did you go? What did you and your friends conspire to do? In the quiet of your room, what project, secret or otherwise, made time fly by? What art did you love to create? What books did you gobble up?

Between the ages of 8 and adolescence is when we had the most freedom to be ourselves, to explore, to develop interests, to experiment. There’s a theory that, at midlife, we pickup where we left off when left this phase and entered the great beauty pageant of adolescence. 

Keep going into adolescence, into high school, into university/college, what clubs did you join? Did you dream of making a sports team or want a part in a play? As a young adult, as you worked your first, second, third job. What did you dream of doing, instead of what you were doing? What did you do in your spare time?

Go into your thirties when work got intense and/or when you got married or started a family. What was going on then? What were you dreaming? What was missing? What did you wish you had the time and money for?

And then, in your forties, when you started to feel unsettled, or wondering if this was all there was, or if this was going to be your lot in life. Whose life looked awesome? What did you feel you’d missed?

  • Write your dreams down in a list
  • Write your age beside each dream
  • Don’t think too much, just get them down
  • Leave room to add to your list. You may remember more as you go.
  • Make a long list and include as much as you can
Include everything. Things like wanting a cat or a horse, being part of the cool gang, winning a prize, becoming a famous athlete, getting a great car, moving to a foreign city, getting into a certain relationship … getting out of it, writing a novel, spending a summer by yourself, making a million dollars, communicating with animals, becoming an astologer, visiting Japan or the Grand Canyon, learning Spanish, walking the Camino, becoming a great cook. 

What happened to your dreams?

Then look at all those dreams. What happened to them? Did they come true? When I did this, I realized that a lot of my dreams had come true. It surprised me. It made me feel like I could make more dreams come true.

Why didn’t some of them come true? What stopped you from pursuing them? Did you outgrow them? Did you feel like they were too unusual? Maybe you didn’t know anyone who had done it so it seemed impossible? Or that you couldn’t make a living from them? Or you tried and failed? Were they were too scary, too outlandish, too big? Maybe another dream, like having a family or making a lot of money took precedence?

Don’t judge, just notice. Are you seeing any patterns? Is there anywhere that you’d like to wave a magic wand and make it happen overnight? What if you were the opposite sex … would you add any dreams to your list? What if you came across the best “help wanted” ad ever? What would it say?

Don't forget the small dreams and the big dreams.

Maybe you have a bucket list – heli-ski a mountain, see a show on Broadway, read War and Peace. Or an “impossible dream” … have a supernatural experience, find the cure for a disease.

Dream, play, notice.

That’s a lot for now. Play with your list. Add things as the week progresses. Thinking of some dreams will help you remember others. Make sure you put it on paper, in whatever way you choose. If you leave it in your head, it will remain the same jumbled mess it’s always been.

Next week, we’ll shorten the list.

Note: I borrowed this exercise from Barbara Sher’s book, “It’s only too late if you don’t start now” for this post. If you want to really dig in and get more details, this is a great book whose subtitle is “How to Create Your Second life at Any Age.” Barbara Sher has been coaching people on dreams and finding meaningful work since the ’80’s. 

Go to Part 2

Turn Your Dreams into Goals – Part 1