That Reoccurring Dream

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream.  The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs.  Dreams are the seedlings of reality.”  -- James Allen

I think that most people can tell you of a reoccurring dream they have had.  You know the ones you seem to dream over and over, night after night.  We are sure they mean something, but we are not sure what.  Personally I do not place a lot of stock in dreams; however I have had the reoccurring dream and do find it interesting.

The dreams I do put a lot of stock in are the ones we have when we are awake.  Call them our hopes, goals, dreams or whatever, they are always with us and I believe they do mean something, a great deal actually.  Author and speaker, Joyce Meyer said, “God gives us hopes and dreams for certain things to happen in our lives, but He doesn’t always allow us to see the exact timing of His plans.”

In my many years of coaching and counseling with people I think the most common of all questions is, “What am I to do in my life?”  People are always looking for their purpose and their calling.  Some go from career to career or become professional students always looking for a new degree or title.  They search for that something that will make them feel complete, that thing they were born to do.

This is where I believe the reoccurring dream comes in.  Have you ever noticed that when you come to a crossroads in life you start thinking about the same thing?  There is something you have always, and I mean always, wanted to do.  When you daydream, you go back there.  When you get frustrated with life your thoughts go back there.  It is a reoccurring dream that you have had as long as you can remember.

There may be many reasons why you never pursued it.  You did not think you had the skill or education.  You might think you are now too old or too young or too broke or too restricted in life.  The reasons why you can’t do it are many, but they never remove the fact that you want to do it.  The poet Langston Hughes said, “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die then life is like a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”  Do you feel like your wing is broken?  You know you were meant to fly but you have not been able to get off the ground.

I believe that the reoccurring dream is the thing you were created to do.  That is why it does not go away.  It is hard-wired into your soul and you cannot escape it.  Truth is that for most of us, as we search for our purpose in life, it is right there all the time we just cannot believe it is real.  Some where we have gotten the idea that our purpose or “God’s will” for our life cannot be something we really want.

“All men who have achieved great things have been dreamers.” – Orison Swett Marden

Our purpose, our destiny if you will, is in fact the very thing we really want to do.  It is what we are made for.  It is what will complete us and be the most satisfying for us.  This does not mean it will be easy.  Fulfilling our dreams will be the hardest work you will ever do.  But it is the work you will want to do.  You will look forward to each day so you can do it some more.  Jim Rohn said, “The greatest change to go from average to fortune is not so much as increase in knowledge, but rather, a change in our emotions about achieving our goals.”

You may think that your dreams are too big, or it is too late in the game to start going after your dream.  Pat Croce said, “Be like a kid and have no ceiling to your dreams.”  Children believe that they can do anything.  They have no problem believing that “when they grow up”; they can be President, an astronaut, a doctor or a soldier.  Then they start to grow up and start hearing how they can’t do those things.  I have always found it amazing that we tell our children they can be anything when they are young, then they grow up and we tell them to be realistic and we squash all those dreams.

Time you follow the instructions of Jesus Himself and become as a child.  Start believing in dreams again.  The limits that have been placed on you are of your own making.  The limits you face are only limits because you think they are.  Benjamin Disraeli said, “Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher than you think.”  That is our problem; we think we have hit our limits.  But as writer and actress, Jossie Bisset said, “Dreams come a size too big so that you can grow into them.”

Now, I am a realist.  I understand that that there are things like money, family, careers, education, society and a dozen other things that seem to stop us from pursuing our dream.  I also understand that we use those things as shields to hide behind.  There is no failure if I do not try.  If I have things that limit me then I am not responsible for never achieving my dreams.  That is all excuses and in the end worthless.  Thomas Merton said, “The biggest human temptation is to settle for too little.”

If you are settled on never achieving your dreams, do yourself a favor and drop the excuses.  Just admit you will settle for less in your life and go on living in your limitations.  As my friend Daryl Daughtry said, “Helping someone in denial is like trying to saddle a cow.  You work like heck, but what’s the point.”  I have discovered long ago that there are many more people who really do want change in their life.

For those who are ready to catch the dream and to become all you are meant to be, I have a few instructions for you.  First and foremost, you must decide that it is now time to go for the dream.  Everything you do is based on a decision.  Once the decision is made you just have to maintain that decision.  But nothing will start till you have decided.  Forget the details; they will come later, just take the first step.  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wisely said, “Take the first step in faith.  You don’t have to see the whole staircase.  Just take the first step.”

What is the dream?  This is not hard to figure out since you have had it for so long.  What is that reoccurring dream that you keep coming back to.  Write it down, define it in detail.  Not what you think it should be or what “reason” tells you it should be.  Write down just what you think about when you go back to it.  Get as much detain as you can.

Now, what do you need to do to make it come true?  This by the way will not involve doing hurtful or dishonest things.  You are not to leave your family and responsibilities to join the circus.  The thing about our purpose is that it was made for our life.  It fits.  All the things that you thought were hindrances are really part of the full picture.  You make it work.  I told you it would not be easy.  If easy is what you want then go back to life as you knew it.  We are achieving dreams here.

Once you have it down, what is the first step?  Is it education?  Go back to school.  Is it investing is training or some kind of equipment?  They earn the money to do so.  Whatever the need, go after it.  Make a plan and follow it.  The key is that you now have the destination.  All else is the journey and that really is the fun part.

The time has come to stop living less than you can be.  Thousands of people die never coming close to being what they could have been.  Do not make that mistake.  The loss is too great for you and for the rest of the world.  You may well be the one person to change it all for the better.  You do not know.  Anyone who has brought great change to the world did not realize at the time what they would cause.  They just had an idea and as Earl Nightingale said, “Everything begins with an idea.”

Go for the dream.  Joel Olsteen said, “Do all you can to make your dreams come true.”  It is in you to succeed.  This is what you were created to do so how can you fail?  Do the work, pay the price and you will be one of the happiest people in the world.  You will know what it is like to live your dream.  To see that reoccurring dream that seemed so far away become a reality.  It is up to you if you are ready to succeed.

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you’ve imagined.” – Henry David Thoreau

© Jack Hickey 2010