Growing Up with Dreams
When I was a young girl I would watch the television show The Brady Bunch religiously.
In the opening of the show there was a shot of the outside of the Brady home. The home was mid-century modern. I did not know that at the time, but I loved it.
I loved the home so much I wanted to design homes like it when I grew up. Knowing from watching the show that Mike Brady was an architect and had designed the home, I dreamed of being architect like Mike Brady.
As I got older, that dream turned to designing a home for my parents. That is what I dreamed of giving back to them when I became an adult. I held onto that dream for many years.
Dashing of Dreams
In high school my mechanical drawing teacher told me, “Pam, you have to be an artist to be an architect.”
As a teenager who respected her elders and believed adults knew what they were talking about because they were, well, adults, I trusted that he knew better than I. [NOTE to children: adults do not know everything – that is what I would tell a younger me.]
I was no artist, therefore I could not be an architect and I could not design a house for my parents one day.
My dreams were dashed.
What to Do When Your Dreams are Dashed
When I was older I learned that I did not need to be an artist to be an architect. By the time I realized that, however, I believed I was too old to consider giving it a go. Besides, I had graduated college and was off to work in corporate America by that time.
Over the course of my life, I have wondered what my life would have been like had I ignored my teacher.
I, of course, will never know the answer to that question.
Most of us will never know the answers to the “what ifs,” but if you had a dream that has been dashed, what do you do?
Here I offer you suggestions of what you can do about your dashed dreams.
Suggestions for your dashed dreams
Understand that life goes on, then choose to move on with it. My life did not stop because I did not become an architect. Whether I became an architect or not, life was going to keep moving on until the day I was meant to leave this earth. Since you have no choice but to keep moving along with life, move on with it.
Do not dwell on what did not happen; focus on making new opportunities happen. Throughout your life you will have setbacks. Whether it is a dream that is dashed, or something that you should or could have done but didn't, do not dwell on what could have happened.
Use that energy to use your life experiences to help make new opportunities happen. Try something new. Take on new responsibilities. Join and be an active participant in a club or an organization. The more experiences you have the more you will learn about yourself.
The more you learn about yourself, what you want, and what you need in your life, the more chances you have to make opportunities happen.
Know and accept that dreams can look different than what you envisioned. Sometimes we get caught up in tunnel vision – we only focus on one way of getting to our destination.
I wanted to become an architect to help provide for myself, to give back to my parents as a way of thanking them for the way they raised me, and to make them proud of me.
I never designed a house for them, but the life I ended up living based on their teachings – earning a bachelors and Masters degree, being involved in church, being a mentor to my niece, nephews, and cousins, helping them and others – makes them proud.
You may not get to your destination the way that you had hoped and it may take on a different form, but when you open up your mind to other possibilities, you can reach that destination.
Be open to new dreams. Being an architect is not the only dream that I had. I also wanted to be a track star like Wilma Rudolph running for the United States in the Olympics and a basketball star like Cheryl Miller. Like with me not becoming an architect, neither of those dreams came true.
Try as I might, I simply was not talented enough to do either. That did not mean I was not talented. It only meant I was not talented enough to achieve those types of dreams.
I have plenty of talents. There are even talents that I did not realize I had until I allowed myself to accept that dreams can look different than you had envisioned. In fact, life experience led me to my talents.
I, for example, can stand up in front of an audience – something many are terrified to do – and inspire them with my messages about creating opportunities. Not until my life experiences led me to speaking did I dream about the possibilities of being a professional speaker.
Again, recall that life goes on, spend your energy on making new opportunities happen, know that dreams can look different that what you had envisioned, and open your mind to dream a new dream.
Start the Discussion: What dreams of yours have been dashed? After reading this post, what are you going to do about those dashed dreams. Share in the post comments, on Facebook, or Twitter.