We all had dreams. No matter your age, there was a time 10, 20, or 30 years ago—or even longer! —when you had ideas about how you wanted your life to be.
Dreams about your career, your lifestyle, your legacy. Your ideas about who you were going to spend that life with, what the place you called “home” was going to look like.
As life unfolded, you may have become discouraged, hurt, or just busy and so stopped pursuing those dreams. You settled for something completely different. You gave up your dreams.
I think that most of the time, this happens gradually, and what I mean by that is that we don’t suddenly give up our dreams one day to the next. Instead, little by little, day after day, we choose a different path than the one we imagined for ourselves. We keep walking that path for years, focusing on our current path and its next curve or bump until we forget that this was not the path we originally wanted to walk.
And that’s completely ok. But I think it’s a good practice to, from time to time, remember those dreams. Check-in with yourself to see if you really don’t want to pursue them, or even an updated version of them, anymore, just to be sure that you’re on the path that you want to be on.
Why not do it right now?
With an open and curious attitude, you could ask yourself:
“Is this life I’m living right now the life I want?”
Explore every corner of your life: career, friends, family, partner, lifestyle, children, health, habits… whatever comes to your mind.
You may be afraid of not having the answers.
You may be afraid of feeling frustrated.
Or maybe you think you’re going to regret certain decisions you’ve made and can’t change.
I get the fear. But I suggest instead that you focus on the world of possibilities around you. Look at your life right now as a platform from which you can take many different paths. You can take unlimited paths.
You’re a different person than the one who went on a different path years (maybe decades) ago. You have other skills, knowledge, experiences, preferences.
Unlimited possibilities. That’s the place where I would like you to come from.
And if you see a possibility that lights a spark in you: feel it, get excited, and take the first step.