"What's your dream?"

I always hear those words in a certain voice with a certain inflection, and as I started thinking about this post I knew I had to figure out who was saying at and where it was coming from. After a quick Google search, I instantly knew why I would hear that particular question in that voice;  it comes from my one of my favorite movies from back in the day!  

 

 

Ahh, happy endings!  Gotta love them!  

Now that my mystery is solved, let's move on to the real topic, which actually is:

What's your dream?

 

As I get older, less and less actually surprises me.  But when I recently learned that —according to a Harvard study — only about 17% of the US population claims to have dreams or goals, I honestly couldn't believe it. 

So that means roughly 8 out of every 10 people are going through life just settling for the status-quo, taking whatever comes, and never hoping for more?! Really??!!

I honestly can't begin to imagine what life would be like without having more to look forward to!

When I was in grade school, I looked forward to middle school, then high school, then college.

In college, I looked forward to graduating, getting a job, and getting married.

Once married, I dreamed of having kids and loving life as a mom.

After several years of parenting, I dreamed of starting to do things for myself again! (I hear you moms chuckling and nodding at that one!) 

Now that I have two kids almost ready to leave home and launch out into life, I'm dreaming of my 'part two' years, between now and retirement.  I've got plans for career growth, travel, moving to my dream home in my dream spot on the planet (I'm looking at you, St. Augustine!), and — most especially and hopefully —being a grandma in about a decade and a half!

Most of these dreams I have are actually goals that I've set, and I've got a working plan to achieve them.  Others I understand are out of my own personal control, but that doesn't mean I can't hope for things to work out the way I'm dreaming for them to!  The dreaming, hoping, planning, and excited anticipiation is what makes life FUN — maybe even more so than actually realizing the dreams. 

You've probably heard all sorts of quotes like, "The joy is in the journey" or "Happiness is not a destination, it's a way of life."  The reason those quotes resonate so powerfully is simply that anyone who lives with dreams and goals knows the words to be 100% absolutely true.  

But if we are to believe the Harvard statistics — and let's face it, Harvard's a pretty reliable source — 83% of Americans are not living their lives that way.  Isn't that sad?

I truly hope that you are one of the 17% who live life with an eye and a heart for the future and all of the wonderful possibilities it holds, but just in case you're not... let me give you a few bits of food for thought.

Finding Your Dream

First, I'd encourage you to take some time to reflect on what misconceptions you might be carrying around in life that are preventing you from desiring more.  For example, are you too caught up in the demands of everyday life to look up from your work? Or maybe you're actually afraid to dream and set goals because you dread being disappointed or rejected, or never reaching the goal.  

Just stop!  You're a grown-up, and by now you should know that fear is simply false evidence appearing real.

So you don't achieve every dream or goal you set; so what?

Failure is not fatal.  And even better is Zig Ziglar's philosophy:  "Failure is an event, not a person!"  

I could list hundreds of instances of the world's most successful people having failed —and failed big! —mulitple times before achieving their success.  Don't believe me?  Google "Thomas Edison failure" or "Albert Einsten failure"!  

Or read Mr. Ziglar's autobiography!  The man failed over and over again before his career became the incredible success that it was. And his failures are so inspiring because through it all, he kept his eye on the future.  He always dreamed of more, and sure enough, with plenty of persistent consistency, more is exactly what he got! 

So let's set aside the idea that you might not achieve your dreams, and get to dreaming.  I've heard Tom Ziglar put it this way:  If money were no object, and you could be, do, and have whatever you wanted in life, what would your life look like a year from now? 3 years? 10? 

Get out a pen and paper and write it down.  Be specific!  Write down everything you can imagine that your life would be like. You don't have to publish this for the world to see, but by writing it down and keeping it somewhere that you can review it regularly, you're already taking a significant step toward making your dreams become reality. 

The bottom line is that without a dream, you will go through life as a wandering generality instead of a meaningful specific.  

So, here's my question for you again — and I want you to hear it asked with all of the proper attitude and inflection of a dude in a blockbuster movie's happy ending — what's your dream?