Wake Up, Oh Sleeper: Reclaiming Lost Dreams in Small Ways
I was beginning to believe that I would never write again. Almost two years of putting off editing my last manuscript, a year since I’d started my new novel. A blog that had been limping along for six months with hardly any new posts, and certainly few new readers. I thought maybe it was time to call it quits. Writing kept being that thing so far down my priority list that it was always left behind.
Now, one could easily argue that maybe God really was calling me to lay down my writing. I considered this. The difference is, that usually when I do what God tells me to, even when I don’t like it, I usually experience peace. That peace that surpasses all understanding that the book of Proverbs talks about.
But I didn’t feel that. Instead, I felt like my soul was being sucked out. Like I knew how to fly but someone had bound my wings, and no matter how I pulled at the ropes I couldn’t escape. I wondered if I should give up dreaming to fly.
Some dreams are meant to stay dreams, but even in that state, they can still help inspire and motivate us. I may never achieve my big writing dreams. But if in the meantime I produce work I’m proud of that makes a difference to someone, then my work hasn’t been for nothing.
Do you have a dream that is asleep?
We all have those things we’ve always wanted to do and never seemed to be able to work towards.
Take one small step. Maybe it’s taking a class on writing, photography, auto repair, whatever it is that excites you.
Maybe it’s investing some time in research and reading. Make it a regular part of your life.
If you don’t have much, give what you can.
It’s easy to feel like we’ll never have the time we need to accomplish major goals. If you can give it ten minutes a day, do that, or an hour a week, or one day a month, or whatever you have.
I’m not promising that it will happen overnight but I have to believe that something is better than nothing. Otherwise, those of us who toil away in scraps of time are wasting our lives.
Do you have a dream that feels dead? Something that used to make you feel alive but now it just feels like it’s weighing you down?
Sometimes there are things that no longer give us joy. We may not even have achieved our goal yet, but the fight just isn’t worth it anymore and the passion is gone.
There are three ways of dealing with this, and I can’t tell you which is for you.
Take a Break
Take a break, and see how you feel. When I find that a project I’m working on is getting stale, I set it aside for a while and work on something else. Now, this is not to be confused with New Shiny Thing syndrome. That is when hard work is required to move a dream forward and we’d rather put our efforts into something new.
A bit like constantly chasing the infatuation phase of a relationship. When it starts to require more effort and we’re no longer floating on the clouds of hormones and emotions, it’s tempting to move on.
Deliberately stepping away from a dream for a time isn’t the same as leaving it. It’s giving you and your muse the opportunity to miss each other. Try doing something else you enjoy. When I feel stuck on a writing project I knit. When my knitting frustrates me I sew. When I’m tired of sewing, I go back to writing again. Obviously the cycle varies, but it helps to have something else that flexes creative muscles if your dream is something in the creative vein.
Don’t stop, just slow down.
Now, for some of us, stopping just causes us to lose momentum, and doesn’t lead to us doing more of what we need to as we move towards our dreams. In those cases, I’d say don’t stop, just slow down. A breakneck pace is a recipe to take the joy out almost anything. So instead of abandoning your dream, just take a calmer, my deliberate pace. Grant yourself some time to refocus and reassess, and move forward more relaxed. This may be just what you need to rediscover your love for your dream.
Reconnect with the source
For me this means, reconnecting with Christ. I know that God has made me a creative person. It is in my DNA as much as my hair color and my need for order. But sometimes I forget that it is, in fact, part of my design. I’m meant to be this way. This means that when I feel like I’m losing my direction, and I can’t seem to find my way, I need to reconnect with the source. I do this through prayer, worship, studying the scriptures and reading other writers of faith. Not all those things at once certainly, but making room for these things a bit at a time.
Some of us are tired. Some of us are discouraged. Some of us aren’t sure we can take another step and we’d rather let our dreams die than have to carry the burden any further. The truth is, when God puts these kinds of desires in us, it isn’t meant to be a burden but a joy. But we have to continually remind ourselves where these dreams come from and continue to ask God for the strength to use them.
