What stops us from living our dreams is a question I would love to answer today (topic of my next article), however, I have learned that before we can address what stops us from living our dreams we must ask ourselves what our dreams truly entail? Of what are they made? What do they look like? And what kind of life would we lead in the process of living them?
Today I want to look at what it actually looks like to live our dreams. What we have been taught about dreams is, in many ways, wrong. Living our dreams is not what we have been led to believe…
Living your dream is not a goal, an outcome, or something to achieve. Living your dream is not a checklist of things you want to do over the course of your life. It is not a list of places your want to go or things that you wish to be.
Living a dream is an embodied process. It is a way of life. It is a journey upon which you are never a master but always a student. It is a journey upon which you never stop learning, growing, exploring, and being. To live your dream is to live present in the moment as your dream unfolds before, and around, you. It is not a destination at which we arrive but a path upon which we walk each day.
As you look at your dreams, and what they entail, ask yourself these questions: What is the lifestyle, the process, the journey that goes with it? Is that truly the way I would live?
I have often found that many of the goals, or things that I wanted to achieve, do, or be, were attached to lifestyles that I did not want to live. They were attached to a process of living that I didn’t want to be a part of. Those outcomes I came to realize later were never my dreams at all – but things I decided that I wanted at some point for reasons outside myself.
Perhaps I decided I wanted them because the world respected them, or my pride desired them? Perhaps because others in my life thought they were worthy goals towards which to strive? Many are the reasons I chose the goals and aspirations I did as a child, but were they truly mine? Did they truly originate in my heart or were they taught me as I advanced through this world which strives to impress its ideals and values upon me at every turn? Did I only want to reach the destination or did I actually want to live the dream, or lifestyle, associated with it?
This realization forced me to ask myself a question: What is it that I truly, and most deeply, want? What is the lifestyle that I want to lead?
The answer to that question profoundly changed my journey. Life is not about the destinations towards which we walk. It is about the journeys upon which we engage our hearts, minds, and souls. Therefore shouldn’t we make the lifestyle we choose to lead, the dream we choose to live, the goal in and of itself? If we do this won’t the achievements and accomplishments of the path simply take care of themselves?
The process should be our goal. The journey itself should be our destination. If we focus on the walking alone, keeping in mind our overall dream – and why we walk the path we do, then we will find ourselves ever on the path of our dreams and living the life we have always sought to live. The achievements, goals, outcomes, and accomplishments will then happen as naturally as heat from a flame.
The life of your dreams is not only about where you are headed, though that is important as well. You must know towards what you move if you wish to move successfully through life. The question though, is not found in worrying about what you wish to accomplish – rather it is found in worrying about how you wish to live. If you worry about how you live, what you do, and why you do it then all the destinations and accomplishments will take care of themselves.
Look at your own life.
What is your dream? Not your list of goals… but the life of your dreams? What does it look like? What does that process, lifestyle, path, journey, and walking look like on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis? What kinds of things would you be doing, what would you be involved in, and what would matter most? In this lifestyle of your dreams what would fill your time? What would you fill your life with? What would be most important?
If you can’t live that lifestyle full-time yet due to the demands of the various responsibilities of your life that is OK. You are not alone. The key is to take whatever time you have above and beyond what is required to sustain the necessities of your life and begin to live the way you desire in your heart – the lifestyle that will lead you towards your dreams.
You know you are living the lifestyle of your dreams if you live your life a certain way, and would, if no one was paying you to do it. In living the life of your dream money isn’t the goal. It comes with time but it isn’t the goal. It isn’t about the money. It is about living your dream and being happy. With time the opportunities that could lead to money, through such a lifestyle, will come. Anyone who is actively living the lifestyle of their dream knows that it is more daily discovering, creating, and living the lifestyle that actually leads you further down the path of your dream.
Go and look inside the walls of your heart and see what really matters to you. Delve the goals and aspirations of your life and ask yourself what the lifestyle attached to them would look like. If it is desirable then start to live it! If it is not then ask yourself some hard questions: What does this lifestyle I would lead really look like? What is important to me? What do I want? What actions give me life? What does my heart and soul seek to do in its own expression? What is the song of my heart and how do I let it out?
Time is an illusion. No man has more of it than another. The difference between men who achieve their dreams and those who do not is how they use the time they have been given. Discern between those things which are essential to the process of living your dreams and let nothing remove them from your daily life. Your life is your own. Choose today to walk the path of your dream and be present therein. As you do so happiness will sprout within your heart and grow into your life – bringing peace of mind and serenity of soul with it.
May you be blessed in the walking of your heart. May you have the vision to see the lifestyle of your dreams and discover within yourself the strength to create it.
Alter the form of your life, take what was impossible within the lifestyle of your old life, discover the makeup of a new life, implement the habits of the lifestyle attached to your dreams. If you do this you will wake to someday discover that you have taken the impossible and made it possible…
Overcoming Fear Series:
- What does it mean to live our dreams?– July 24th
- What stops us from living our dreams? – Aug 7th
- Overcoming Fear Itself – Aug 21st
Dear Daniel,
Thank you so much for this post. It is a real eye-opener, and something that I haven’t thought much about. I have always considered my dreams to be what I wanted to be when I grew up, or who I would marry.
Now, I understand that dreams are these things; but only in part. The vehicle in which these things travel in is our lifestyles. If we are living our lives in the way we TRULY want to, it is then that our dreams can fall in place.
I mostly agree with you. However, I think that, just like not all paths lead to heaven, not all lifestyles lead to happiness. For example, “Wickedness never was happiness.”
Thank you again! I look forward to reading your posts in the future.
I couldn’t agree more. Certain lifestyles will never lead to happiness. To every action there are natural consequences that we do not get to choose. They will occur no matter what we do, much as we may sometimes protest. I think that at our hearts our dreams, our true dreams, are always positive and uplifting though. It is only when tainted by vice that they become something dark. Absent of vice they lighten our world, lift our hearts, and move us forward into a brighter day. We do have to face our fears, overcome our weaknesses, and develop the habits and characteristics of happiness if we seek to be happy. In doing this we will develop a happy life. We cannot separate the consequences of our actions, or our lifestyle, from the lifestyle itself. They will always be consistent one with another in the end.