Authentic Dreams
Today I thought it would be fun to pivot and talk about dreams - a slightly more elevated version of what we want in life - the desires that actually inspire and motivate us, that bring focus and purpose to what we do. You know, dreams.
For some of us our dreams can be super out there, somewhat untethered to current reality, while others of us make do with teeny tiny dreams, dreams that when you think of it, really reflect the difficulty we have with dreaming.
There are many reasons we can end up with what we call “faulty dreams” on the path of active authenticity, dreams that honestly don’t reflect what’s true for us.
But today I want to call out a common problem with our dream-making. It’s when we generate our dreams without considering our true capacity.
And let me just take a minute here to read from Chasing the Wild Authentic, I believe it’s chapter eleven.
A faulty dream arises with no thought to your abilities or limits, and will doom you to under-stimulation or perpetual overwhelm and exhaustion.
Too little, or too much. This type of faulty dream occurs when you don’t have a good grasp on what you can reasonably manage.
This type of faulty dream either short-changes your abilities or capacity, or it overreaches, causing overwhelm. Either way, this dream is out-of-synch with yourself or your situation. Going back to the text:
An example here is when your dream keeps you locked into a “safe” situation with external status but internal unrest, or when you follow an entrepreneurial pursuit without the needed time or capital to truly make it work.
Or when the execution of your dream doesn’t play to your strengths.
Or when the dream plays to your strengths but ignores what makes you come alive.
Can you feel how the focus of an authentic dream is you, the real you? What you can truly manage?
An authentic dream refuses to divorce your goals from what’s true for you.
When we separate our dreams from our reality, the “faulty” dreams we end up with don’t take us closer to who we are. In fact, they do just the opposite.
So even if we achieve a faulty dream, such a dream won’t ultimately affirm who we are. And achieving it won’t create ease, happiness, and wellbeing, the signature experiences of authentic dream-making.
While creating authentic dreams depends on having a pretty good idea of who you are, which of course is the work of the earlier chapters in Chasing the Wild Authentic, it also depends on having a clear-eyed understanding of your current limits and commitments.
And this clarity is something we can all pretty much achieve if we spend a bit of time considering our limits and commitments. Ask yourself:
Am I operating at capacity right now, or do I have room for more challenge and growth?
Does a dream I have fundamentally conflict with a commitment I hold dear: for example, the kind of parenting you’d like to do, or a career goal, or lifestyle you’d like to achieve?
What truly feeds my joy and sense of aliveness, and will the dreams I hold feed these rivers of wellbeing?
Just these three questions.
Thinking through the lens of these questions can help throw light on whether the dreams you have are in fact authentic dreams, or if your dreams might be “faulty” ones.
Faulty dreams will only set you against yourself, not only in their pursuit, but likely also in their achievement.
Explore Zone 4: Unleashing Your Aliveness posts below.
