Dream Big or Dream Real?

I’ve always been a dreamer. I think BIG thoughts, dream even BIGGER dreams. I’ve been told in the past that I should be more realistic in the things that I aim for…the things that I want…the things that I determine myself to accomplish. I always go above and beyond the things that are expected of me and aim to reach what some would determine as totally and completely impossible.

I mean, hello? I’m trying to get a photography business up and running and semi-successful within a 12 month time period. How is that for over-achiever? My question to you today, is should we dream big dreams or should we dream realistically? Should we teach our kids to shoot for the moon, or teach them that there are some things in life that they may never accomplish, so why aim for them?

For me, I think it’s a safe mix of the two.

I am a firm believer that you can do absolutely anything that you want to do. Big or small. After all, we’ve all heard the saying, “Aim for the moon…because even if you miss you will land among the stars.” I think the people with big dreams and big plans and big goals are generally the ones who are happier and more content with life. They have a plan, they have a goal…they have something to work for. Idleness is killer. The sitting. The lack of ambition, the lack of drive, the plan to go, well, nowhere? That’s no lifestyle and I have no desire to ever, ever ever reach that kind of complacency in life.

I think as parents we have to teach our children to dream within their abilities or to hone the skills needed to dream outside of them. For instance, if Little Man grows up and decides he wants to be, I don’t know, a Chemical Engineer, but he squeaks by with C’s and low B’s in Chemistry and Physics. It would be my duty as his mother to try to hone those lackluster skills in order for him to become truly successful. {Keep in mind, the “skill honing” would totally and completely be up to a tutor, because this Mama, though I did pass with an “A” completely sucks at Chemistry and Physics. Blah.}

But other than that, I don’t think we should ever inhibit ourselves or our children in their dreams. It’s a big, big world with lots and lots of opportunity. We just have to seize it. Nothing in this world comes for free or without hard work. I’ve learned that over time. If you want something, you have to have the drive, the determination and the desire to go out there and make it happen. Which is why the photography business and all of the unknown knowledge doesn’t frighten me at all. [Ok. Maybe just a bit, but not enough to slow me down.]

We don’t live in a society where things happen for free. I believe the age of saying that opportunity is at every corner and that when God closes one door, he opens another. But you’ve got to take advantage of that! Nothing is going to just happen because you “want”  it to because you think you deserve it. Chase it. Believe in it. And then do what you have to do to make it happen.

For example, no professional photographer is going to seek out an amateur whose done absolutely nothing other than snap some photos of her son to teach. It just doesn’t work that way. And I know that. So it’s up to me to take to initiative and go for it. Swallow my pride and fear that I may be told no and just ask. And I was told yes. So now I have a mentor and a teacher lined up over the summer, because I wasn’t afraid to go after it.

And I will teach my son to be the same way.

This mama won’t be the kind to hand everything over to my little man just because he wants it or because he thinks he needs it. Uh-uh. Not me. Or his daddy, for that matter. I’m going to teach him that the opportunities are out there and that he can do whatever he wants to in life, if he just sets his mind to it and goes for it.

What about you? What kind of goals and dreams do you have? Do you ever feel that you have let your self expectations slip and that you’ve given up on your dreams? I want to encourage everyone to reevaluate what they want and make a plan to go for it! Let me hear your dreams!