My Dream Was To Become A Princess
I was a skilled day dreamer as a child. In fact, my parents constantly scolded me for spending too much time “staring into space”, especially at breakfast.
One of the most precious gifts that children bring to our world is their ability to dream unapologetically.
Have you ever asked a child what they want to be when they grow up? I was going to be a princess. Yeah, you heard me. PRINCESS.
And what did the adults have to say, you ask?
Oh, they did what adults do. They chuckled. Tried to tell me all of the reasons why this was impossible. Humoured me by saying that I would always be ‘daddy’s princess’.
7 year old me was having NONE OF THAT.
Thankfully, I was a clever child.
I know I wasn’t born into a royal family. I understand how this works. To become a princess, I need to marry a prince. There are many princes in the world and I am going to marry one. Then, I will become a princess.
HA! I showed those adults.
I’m sure many of you had wild dreams as a child too. Somehow, along the road to adulthood, we allowed the world to talk us out of our dreams.
In time, we lose touch of the art of dreaming. When we do try, we allow all of the reasons why we can’t have our dreams to step in before we can even fully articulate our dreamy thoughts.
We call this ‘being realistic’. We then refer to dreams as ‘wishful thinking’.
Consider this:
- If you can dream it, you can achieve it
- Someone else is already living (or has lived) your dream
- We have the worlds’ greatest library available to us: welcome to the Internet
- Dreaming costs you $0.00
So why are so many of us afraid to dream?
- Our brains have been conditioned based on our lived experience
- Based on this, we create self-limiting beliefs on what we think is possible for our lives
- Human nature is to favour the familiar over the unknown, even in the familiar is suboptimal or downright sucks (see — human survival 101)
- To dream is to dare; that means, stepping out of our comfort zones, taking risks and being willing to publicly ‘fail’
- We are afraid to subject ourselves to criticism
- Pursuing our dreams requires kicking our personal responsibility up 100+ notches; dreams only work if you do
Take note, I’m no exception to the above.
Until recently, my dreams were these flowery thoughts in my head that I dared not share with another soul.
I began 2020 with taking Mel Robbin’s Best Decade Ever challenge. This was the first time in my adult life that I allowed myself to dream. I mean, REALLY DREAM.
Like, living a location independent, financially free life in my dream house by the beach with my family, including our brown labradoodle named Milo.
Here’s the catch: Dreaming isn’t about figuring out the how. It’s about figuring out the what.
At most, I might have 5% of the how figured out, and believe me, that’s a stretch. Nevertheless, I won’t allow that dissuade me from dreaming.
Why?
Because it all starts with a dream. Read that again.
If you are living the quarantine life as you read this, I leave you with a few questions:
- In light of your current restrictions, what is it that you wish you could be doing right now? Where would you rather be?
- What element of your quarantine life do you wish you had more of? Less of?
- What would you love your “new normal” to look like in 3 months? 6 months? 12 months?
I dare to dream. Do you?
