Dream Big

 

I wear a thin gold bracelet that says this quote and it always makes me think. It's not as simple as the notion of, "love what you do." You first have to identify what you love. And then you have to think about what you find beautiful about what you love. Finally, you have to ask yourself if you're actually adding to what you love....to its beauty...by doing and making more of it.

 

My ultimate goal in this little life is that I make this world better by having lived.  While I don't plan on being the first female president or curing cancer or preventing world hunger, I do want to have some sort of impact. I should mention here that I tend to dream on the bigger side. Almost to a fault. Yep, my parents raised a Jessica.

 

For so long, our goals are standard and often expected... make it through elementary school, then the awk-y middle school years, push through high school, then graduate college and/or get a job. But what about after that? It's all up to us. We are adults, anyway. (shudder) Someone once said, "Don't let your dreams always be dreams." ...which is inspiring but also quite scary, yes? If you're like me, you might carry around a mental list of things you hope to accomplish someday - so, someone reminding you that someday has the chance of never being today unless you get-on-that-shiz ASAP is a tad discomforting... especially when you allow yourself to acknowledge how quickly the months and years pass by. It's outrageous, really. I got my 10-year high school reunion save-the-date in the mail recently and stood in my kitchen staring at it, certain that the school had made a giant mistake.  I had one of those bizarre moments comparable to fogetting how to spell a word like, 'who' where I questioned whether or not the same amount of time passes between the ages 10 to 20 and 17 to 27. And it took an embarrasingly long time to figure out the answer to that oh-so-difficult question. So like, what gives? It's as if time only speeds up as we age and the calendar only becomes more packed of things to remember and juggle. Granted, I have a wizard for a mother; she accomplishes more productive/good/selfless/fun things in a day than most do in a month so perhaps as a result, my bar is set at impossible. Even so, I find myself tripping over (ha! even happens when I'm just figuratively speaking) those bigger dreams of mine just because I don't know where to even begin nor where to find the time. So what do I do? Well, I have an idea...

 

Instead of carrying around these mental dreams, I'm going to first write them down. Sounds easy, but it's actually pretty terrifying and makes me uncomfortable. But if I've learned anything, it's the uncomfortable setting that typically promotes change and pushes you to be a better version of yourself. Plus, I need to see these things-I-wanna-do on paper since I have a feeling the list might be long and I will need to do some prioritizing. The next thing to do is to separate your dreams by category -- for example: fitness, personal, finances, career, something you want to do for others, geographical location, etc. Thirdly? I'm going to put them in chronological order of when I would like (key word being like, since we all know things can happen differently than how we plan) to accomplish them. Some will be easier than others. For example, if you really want to write an autobiography, perhaps you can push that to the end of your list for when you know how your life turns out :)  Within each list, break down the bigger dreams into smaller & more obtainable goals, paying the most attention to the ones you would like to accomplish first. For example, if you're wanting a certain job, but you realize you're going to need a few more years of school, start by identifying the application timelines/guidelines and examining your financial situation. Think about reaching your weekly needs instead of the daunting desire of going from your current state to your end goal. Focus on the month-to-month and the goals you want to accomplish in the next two years, but also look back at your list to see where you want to be in 5 and 10 years. (Yes, this is my plan to make a plan.)

 

Perhaps this rant has been a waste of your time and you stopped reading when I used the term shiz above. Perhaps you've already accomplished big things in your career and personal life and you're at a place of contentment. Or perhaps you're struggling to translate your bigger dreams into a plan of attack and something here resonated with you. (Or maybe this was just a pep talk between me & myself.) Regardless, I'd like to think that when I'm standing in my kitchen one day (oh, how I hope it's a bigger kitchen!) staring at my 20-year high school reunion save-the-date, I will have a similar reaction of wondering how the heck it's been another decade. But here's hopin' I will also be able to look back to now and be like yes! I got something done in those 10 years I decided to.

 

until next time,

 

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