When we become adults the act of dreaming seems like a distant childhood activity. We begin the rat race of life after college and the act of surving day to day life trumps our ability to dream about the possibility of doing anything in life that brings us joy and purpose.
As children we are asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” The answers are endless, doctor, teacher, firefighter, singer, actor and the options change constantly with every season. Then we enter college with the hope of achieving one of these dream careers, but most of end up grinding daily in a job that doesn’t even pertain to the dreams we created in our minds as children.
As women, we start careers and then our dreams of pursuing our purpose are often haulted when we enter a marriage and start making babies. The care of our family takes precident and our self care and purpose take a one way trip to Never-Never Land.
Before I broke my leg in 2020, I felt hopeless that I would ever actually achieve the dreams I created in my mind as a child, as a college student, and as a strong independent woman. What were my dreams as a child? Writing books and articles that helped to inspire women of all ages to redefine their own self worth. My self worth was literal shit throughout grade school years and I would dream of using my words to inspire other women to not allow the media or men to dictate what the definition of self worth was for them, like I did for many years.
I pursued a degree in Journalsim as an attempt to start creating a reality where my dreams came to life, but I continued to allow others opinions of me and my writing to hault my purpose. I stopped trying and nestled into a job that provided safety and security in my life, granted this job brought many lessons in life to share and allowed me to mentor people, another passion, but the whole time from college until March of 2020 a whisper to write filled my head.
“Write a book, you need to write books, start writing, you are wasting your gift.”
In March of 2020 falling and breaking my leg helped me to see the bigger picture. Working endlessly, taking care of everyone else and not myself led to a rock bottom moment where I realized I was on a road to die with my dreams. I decided one night lying on my couch in pain after surgery that I would Dare to Dream Again. No more dwelling on the should of, would of, could of’s in the past, as Ed Mylett says, “Everything happens for you, not to you.”
I decided it was my turn to start actively pursuing my dream to write. It was time to write a book. It was time to start a blog. It was time to use my words to inspire women, like I dreamed of so many years ago. No more time to waste, because this bitch is not getting any younger. So I picked myself off the floor and I started working on rebuilding my self worth and making my dreams in life a priority again. I’m still ironing out all the details, but the beauty is I am closer today to fullfilling my dream of writing a book than I was a year and a half ago.
Sometimes we just need to grant ourselves the ability to dream again. Even if that is just taking a few minutes a day to journal and ask ourselves questions about our present and future. What is my purpose in life? What dream did I stop pursuing when life got tough? What am I truly passionate about? What activities in life fill my cup?
I hope this short post helped you to remember the importance of not only dreaming, but also taking action to follow the dreams inside you. What dream will you start pursuing now? What tiny action steps can you take today to get you closer to achieving your goals in life? Leave a comment below, I would love to hear about your dreams and hold you accountable.
“If you can dream it, you can do it.” – Walt Disney
Christina Noel Wyrick 