I’ve always been fascinated with dreams. My own dreams, and those of others. I’m talking about both the dreams of sleep and the dreams of life. I think the ones we have when we’re wide awake are sometimes of the most immediate importance. It’s the first step to making something happen in your life. The abstract of the next steps are to make goals then make plans. But, it all starts with taking the time to dream about something that’s not yet real.
Dreaming can help:
- To know what you want from a situation, person, or thing.
- Dream up how you want things to go with an event, interview, job, vacation, or whatever else.
- At night, it helps you get better at a new task. Seriously, it’s science.
- Process a situation, emotion, or trauma.
I find that I am much more successful during my day/week/month if I have taken some time to “dream” about my goals. It’s the very first step in my planning. I don’t go through any particular ritual to do it. I just focus on what it is that I want, then I “dream” or imagine myself doing and being what I want.
It’s something we learn to do as kids, but I think somewhere along the way we forget how easy and useful it really is. Maybe because so many others forget, we think that dreaming loses it’s power. It doesn’t. Many people forget how, and proliferate the myth that dreams are for the dreamers who never get anywhere.
The Dreamers who get shit done
Most successful people started with a “crazy idea”, which is a more palatable adult word for a dream:
- Albert Einstein wanted to solve a great mystery.
- Steve Jobs wanted to solve a problem and help people.
- Bill Gates wanted to create a solution for the working person.
- Oprah Winfrey wanted to empower and enrich the human experience.
- Sheryl Sandberg wanted equality amongst men and women.
- Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of freedom and equality for all.
This list can go on and on. The point is, every successful person start with a vague dream of something impossible. Then they set about the task of figuring out what that dream means to them, and how they can make it happen. They set goals for themselves driven by that dream. Then they make plans to achieve each one of those goals. And usually, make plans to ensure the other plans get done.
We can dress up the formula for success with a bunch of fancy words, but it all starts with a dream. Humans have a power that no other animal has. We turn fiction into reality. We created myth.
Fiction starts with a dream. Fiction starts as something in someone’s head. They tell the fiction to someone else. The fiction becomes real in more than one mind. Then, through time, can become reality or a shared myth/belief.
Spend some time dreaming, and make your impossible a reality.