I have probably shared this with you before--- but there is one phrase I distinctively remember hearing from my grandmom as a child. I had big hopes, big ideas, and BIG DREAMS for my life and whenever I would share them with my grandmom, she would say “I hope you get everything you want in life.” Now when she said that I knew she didn’t really think it would happen. She was doing her best to be supportive, but the tone of her voice said it all. I think she thought my big dreams were too big for my reality. If you ask her about it, she may have a different take on that phrase but this is my story and I’m sticking to it.
As a mother of a six year old daughter, I now have the privilege of hearing her BIG DREAMS. When she shares her hopes, ideas and big dreams with me, I make it a point to sound as excited as I feel about my own dreams when I respond to hers. She wants to become a doctor and discover a cure for cancer and I don’t doubt for a second that she can do it! I want her to feel free to dream as big as she possibly can and as her mother I have the responsibility of protecting her dreams until she can protect them herself. I remind her of them when she doesn’t feel like doing her home work. I buy her toys for budding doctors and play “doctor and patient” with her. Last month, I caught her doodling Dr. Kai in her note and I almost cried!
Protecting your dream is a must! It seems simple enough but sometimes our reality makes it difficult for us to reconcile our dreams with what we actually see in our lives everyday. We have to learn to shield our dreams from delays, denials, and detours. We have to make our dreams “NO” proof. We even have to protect our dreams against self-doubt, self-sabotage, and self-imposed limits.
I have spoken with many people who suffered through 2011. Houses were repossessed. Businesses were closed. Marriages were ended. Careers were ruined. Your dream can be the remnant of all of that chaos. When the dust settles your dream can still be standing. All you need is a cause and a plan!
Here are three quick things you can implement today to protect your dream:
Meditate on it. Make it the first thing you think of in the morning and the last thing you think of at night. What you make a priority in your mind because a reality in your life.
Speak highly of it. The worst thing you can do is belittle your dream. Write it out on a piece of paper and frame it. Make it the visual focal point f your office, bedroom, or car dashboard.
Act on it. Take daily action toward making your dream a reality. Spend 30 minutes each day doing something concerning it. You can enroll in a course that will help you become an expert at it.
Whatever you do, keep the dream alive! Big Dreamers experience BIG Lives!
I also wrote about dreams here and here.
What dream have you failed to protect? What will you start doing, today, to protect it? How can I help?
To Blog…Nakeia
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