“Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.”
Albert Einstein
New York City is a place filled with dreams. Eleanor Roosevelt said, “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” You’ve probably heard the phrase “plan your life forward,” but you may not have considered the importance of “dreaming your life forward.” Dreaming forward is essential because it helps you create a vision for your life. You cannot begin to create the life you desire without first having an idea of where you are headed. This is the idea of beginning with the end in mind.
Dreamers are futuristic and thrive on possibilities. Planners think through details, calculate risk, and thrive on predictability. Attributes of both are needed to move your life forward in an intentional way. Planners need permission to dream and dreamers need discipline to make a plan. As you move forward in your life and leadership journey, give yourself permission to dream and dream big! If you are serious about making your life count it is important to identify your dreams.
You have the ability to imagine a preferred future. When God created you, He gave you the gift of creativity and imagination. Your mental ability to imagine and embrace a preferred future for your life makes you unique. Your dreams are unique to you. God created you for a purpose. Dreaming is important to discovering your purpose because it helps you “see” it. Stay connected to your dreams. Dreams are embedded with positive emotions. Those emotions can provide powerful motivation and fuel necessary to move you forward each day.
Albert Einstein said, “Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts.” And coming from someone who had a lot of facts, that’s pretty significant! Don’t waste your dreams. Everyone wants to finish well, but the reality is, most don’t. You are not alone if you wonder how you will push past the unique circumstances, challenges and fears holding you back from your dreams. When you find the courage to pursue your dreams with intention, those barriers begin to fall away and you discover a new level of confidence to move forward. Mark Twain is quoted, “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear- not absence of fear.”
Use the following questions as a guide to help you in the process of dreaming.
What are you passionate about?
What accomplishments are you most proud of?
Ask several of your closest friends to tell you what you are good at?
What do you love to do?
What do you get lost in for hours?
What do you love to talk about?
What is more valuable than “gold” to you?
What work activities feel more like play to you?
What is your favorite hobby?
What would you rather be doing than anything else?
“For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10
Lori Riner 