dreams – Patrick Mayfield

Image by Christopher Windus on Unsplash

Recently I wrote some thoughts stimulated by my reading of Matthew Kelly’s The Dream Manager. I wrote about the importance of reconnecting with our dreams:

Most of us are foolish with our future, saying things like, I have too… or I must…, or this won’t work, it never does. This is the language of the crowd-followers, of foolish victims. Sometimes we are disappointed, so we would rather not dream than be disappointed.
Instead, we wake up and realise that we have choices.

Essentially this is about living in hope and exercising our freedom to realise our dreams.

A member of my family reflected on how they felt trapped by the tactical moves in life, always seeming to repeat patterns. How could they live more strategically? And was this even a legitimate question? Like me, they are what Marianne Cantwell would describe as a “free-range human,” with a large discretion over how they use their time. One of the burdens of this is that we now need to consider what are our goals. We do not have a corporate employer who decides our working goals for us. We need to lead ourselves. There is a danger in the near-horizon survival routine. We work on our routine, simplifying it, optimising it. This is how we wake up to find ourselves in a rut.

If you will, we shorten ROUTINE into RUT.

We need to dream. Daring to dream is giving ourselves permission to think the outrageously wonderful as if it were a possibility. Slaves do not need imagination. We do. We need to imagine a better future, better outcomes, for ourselves and those we care about. Suddenly, it begins to galvanise us, motivating us to achieve great things.

We need to dream. Yet dreams do not come instantly. For some of us, dreaming comes relatively easily. The world is full of possibilities for us.

A friend of mine wanted to take a college course as an adult. She started with a night school course that lasted ten weeks. Towards the end of this course,t she found herself dreaming of going back to college and taking a full Bachelors course at University. She allowed herself to ask, “What if…?”

She went on to take a degree with the UK’s Open University, thoroughly enjoyed it and graduated. It opened up more possibilities and dreams for her. Now she is enjoying a fulfilling career as a teacher.
Did my friend leap to that dream in one go? No. Dream bred dreams. Achievement bred ambition.

She started small. It didn’t seem small to her. With hindsight, it was.

My recommendation is to start with more modest outcomes and work towards them. Think about a good outcome, that might be different, but better, more desirable. Then take the first step towards that. Then, take the next one.

Don’t be surprised if you find your dream too small as you begin to realise it. You might very well find that you want to go for a bigger dream. Here’s the clue: moving towards a dream begins to multiply our dreaming. This is healthy self-leadership.

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What are your dreams?

Have you written them down? If not, why not?

Perhaps, because we are taught not to value dreaming. We are told that dreaming is wasting time. Dreams are fantasy and will never happen. Dreams only set us up for disappointment.

We are all wired to dream. All children dream when they are young – unless or until the world knocks it out of them. Our dreams need to be taken seriously. Once we do, these dreams can become what truly motivates us.

More than that, realising our dreams begin to colour our lives in ways that are invigorating and energising.

Recently, I enjoyed reading Matthew Kelly’s The Dream Manager. Most of the book is written as a business fable about a caretaking business that is haemorrhaging money through sick leave and high staff turnover among its workforce. The workers in this firm are typically from a fairly poor background. The story illustrates well how connecting the employees to their dreams, helping them work towards them and holding them accountable through an internal company dream coaching function helps galvanise them into hope.

There it is again, that word hope. Dreams are mentally healthy and interrupt our natural negativity bias in favour of moving towards a more positive future. Working towards one’s dreams shifts us from a victim mindset towards realising that we have a choice and are more powerful than we realise.

Here is one of my favourite quotes from Bono, lead singer of U2, talking a few years ago in an interview about his One Campaign against poverty in Africa:

The future is more malleable than we think, and we must wrestle it from the fools.
Bono

Most of us are foolish with our future, saying things like, I have too… or I must…, or this won’t work, it never does. This is the language of the crowd-followers, of foolish victims. Sometimes we are disappointed, so we would rather not dream than be disappointed.

Instead, we wake up and realise that we have choices.

Most of us know the story of the prodigal son as told by Jesus. There’s a moment in the story when the fool wises up:

But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise, and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father.
Luke’s Gospel, Chapter 15

He came to himself.

When did you last come to yourself? When did you last wise up and stopped being a victim and started dreaming again, and taking steps towards achieving that dream?

As we treat our dreams seriously and take steps towards making them happen, we are changed.

What are your dreams? Allow me to be your dream manager for a moment. Leave a comment below.