This past week has surfaced a theme of dreams.
I tried a simple exercise: If you had enough money to do anything, what would you do? This year, in the next few months, this month, today?
I’d love to travel with my family – Japan, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, New Zealand, France. We’d also find and buy a sailboat, maybe first do a bareboat charter in the Bahamas to get comfortable sailing with the kids. I’d get three massages per week. I’d hire someone to help me purge and sell most of our belongings. Then maybe more travel, or finally move to Europe.
But then what?
My husband knows his dream: buy a boat, ail around the world with his family, teach boat building to disadvantaged youth. All of which seem like great dreams to me.
But what’s my big dream? There are things I’ve wanted throughout my life – to be a doctor, to travel, to move to Europe, to be a well-adjusted human – but I wouldn’t quite call them Big Dreams.
Mel Robbins says your Big Dream is the thing you’re almost embarrassed to say out loud. The “promise you won’t laugh?” dream. People who don’t know their dream still have one, she says, but they’ve lost the connection to their heart that lets them listen to what they really want.
As a child, the notion of what I wanted wasn’t on the table. “What I want” was not part of the family culture. I know the voice is in me somewhere, and now I’m going to give it some room on my own table to be heard. I’m looking forward to finally hearing the big dream. I promise I won’t laugh.