I watch an episode of suits and I want to become a lawyer. I go on a skiing trip, see some pros doing crazy jumps and I want to spend the whole winter learning how to do tricks with my skis. I read a book that describes the marvellous landscapes of Japan and I want to become a travelling social media influencer. These thoughts and ideas are a daily occurrence for me, and speaking to people about this, I’m not unique in my fantasies. If I wanted to fulfil all my dreams, I would probably need to live for thousands of years. While this may seem daunting, having many dreams is both a blessing and a curse.
Since most people have many dreams, it tends to keep us out of depression. There is always something new and exciting to try no matter how hard life may be. If you only have one or a few dreams, it may be easier to focus on them but once you reach them – it can be a lonely place. Reports of athletes going into depression after winning a gold medal in the Olympics is a perfect example of this. When your whole life is dedicated to one mission, it can be hard to transition to something new once the novelty of completing it wears off.
Unfortunately for us over-dreamers, there is a hidden cost of having many dreams. It makes it hard to focus, we quit quicker when things get hard, and we over romanticise the end goal rather than the journey. In my opinion, the worst culprit of these costs is the inability to focus because it affects the largest proportion of people in the world.
How to focus as a big dreamer?
When you have many dreams, it can be hard to know what you truly want. The solution to this is to make a leap of faith – to trust that life will be great no matter whether you write an interesting book series or have your own cooking channel. If you do not start on any of your dreams because you don’t know what the best choice will be, you are procrastinating because you know that no matter what choice you take, there will be a grind at the start.
After starting one of your dreams, you may decide that actually it’s not what you want or how you envisioned it, then you quit and begin the next dream. The more you do this, the more skills and personal awareness you will gain that makes this process quicker. This way, you will achieve more of your dreams, and you won’t have regrets about not trying.
What if I struggle to focus on a dream even though I know I want to achieve it?
Procrastination 101 – If you are struggling to achieve something, it most likely means that it is not your current priority. That doesn’t mean that it’s not a passion, it just means that something else is currently stealing your attention. When we are conflicted like this, it can be exhausting which causes us to procrastinate. Humans are horrible at multitasking, and we need to focus on one main goal at a time.
The action to take depends on the cause of the conflict because sometimes, priorities can change like a zigzag line. Zigzag lines not only lead to procrastination, but it can kill our desire to chase life goals. Constantly changing focus without reaching the next ‘level’ means that you need to force a choice, and usually that means picking the choice that is most likely to keep you from staying within the zigzag. This is because you will achieve your goals quicker by delaying them to deal with the zigzag conflict then staying stuck in it.
The two most common zigzag conflicts:
I want love – I want to focus on my dream – I want love – I want to focus on my dream
I want financial freedom – I want to focus on my dreams – I want financial freedom – I want to focus on my dreams.
The love zigzag conflict
The difficulty of dealing with the love zigzag line is that it’s not fully in our control. You can tell yourself that you will ignore feelings to focus on your dreams and yet someone special comes along and derails you back into the zigzag. Knowing your own ability to deal with this will decide which one of the 3 main solutions you take:
- Find a partner that is compatible with the dreams you currently want to pursue
- Focus on the dreams which are compatible with finding/staying with a partner
- Put love life on hold and power through achieving your dream
Solution 1 is obviously the ideal but finding suitable partners that are also compatible with your dreams can sometimes be difficult or take time.
Solution 3 requires you to have the strength to not give in to your urges for a potentially long periods of time. If you find that no matter how much you try to power through in achieving your dreams, love always disrupts your flow, then it means love is more important to you and you should prioritise finding a compatible partner first.
There is a caveat to solution 3 though. There are countless examples of people that put either their dreams or careers as priority to avoid improving skills related to relationships. Relationships aren’t easy and there are many skills that need to be developed which takes time and effort. The end result is worth it. Being in a stable and supportive relationship can keep you permanently away from this zigzag conflict and enable you to pursue your dreams.
The financial freedom zigzag conflict
This conflict is frustrating because unlike the love zigzag, where arguably you are choosing between two positive things, often you have to choose between doing something that you are not passionate about to secure your ability to follow your dreams later. This is further complicated when you have many dreams – quitting dreams that you invested time and money into may mean you do not have the resources to give up and start something new.
Solving this conflict is split into two parts. First you have to decide whether to focus on financial freedom or pursue dreams directly, then you have to decide how to deal with quitting on dreams that you have invested resources in. Self-awareness is crucial for both parts.
For the first part, you need to know what your security is like if things go sour. I.e., if your parents are in a stable financial situation and you have good relations with them so that you could go back and live with them for a few months if needed, then that makes it a lot easier to take risks and chase dreams. Being able to get a high paid job quickly due to your professional skills is another bonus. Having your own home without any credit and a chunk of liquid assets at your disposal is even better but if you had this already, this conflict would not be an issue for you.
To summarise, the more security you have and are willing to use it (some of us love our parents but would rather abandon dreams than have to go back to living at home), the more daring you should be with focussing on your dreams first. Especially if your dreams also have high earnings potential.
If you have little to no security, then unless your dream has earnings potential from early on, or is time limited (becoming a professional footballer at 40 won’t be that exciting whereas writing a book still is), the main focus should be achieving some stability. It sucks but life isn’t fair. Many people sacrifice their own dreams to provide the security for their kids and future generations. That doesn’t mean completely abandoning your dream, it just means that the majority of your free time is prioritised on getting to a higher level of security first.
I want to change focus to another dream
The second part of this zigzag conflict is what to do in case you want to change course and quit on a dream to focus on another.
The solution is dependent on why you want to quit. If the reason you want to quit is because neither the end goal nor the journey excites you, then quitting is the better choice, even if it has financial consequences.
However, if the only reason you want to quit is because you are going through a tough period, but you still want to fulfil the dream – then this is where you need to step back, remember that satisfaction is highest after fighting through difficult periods and push forward.
Dreams are about the journey
A zigzag conflict I did not mention is our ego. That can be a book on its own, but the main idea is that removing the outcome from a dream makes it more exciting and easier to enjoy life. It doesn’t matter if achieving your dream doesn’t bring you fame, money or recognition. That is our ego talking. In reality, we have limited time on Earth and at best we will have significant success at only a few things. But in many ways, the people that are happiest and most fulfilled in life don’t care about how successful they accomplished their dreams. They are ordinary people who nobody has heard of, but they have no regrets in life and a lot of tales to tell their friends and family.
