Are you still dreaming? And I don’t mean the “sorting and filing” that happens in our brains while we sleep. I mean dreaming about who you want to be someday, what you want to do someday, where you want to go someday. Both professionally and personally.
In high school and college, I dreamed about wearing suits to work, carrying a briefcase full of important papers, working in a corner office, driving a BMW, and traveling the world.
When I started working for Rolls-Royce as a project engineer right out of college, several of my dreams became realities: the suits, the briefcase, and the BMW. Soon after, I moved to England for a year-long overseas assignment.
Fulfilling these dreams led to new dreams: becoming the president of Rolls-Royce, having enough money to hire a cleaning service to keep my house spotless, and giving motivational speeches to spur on my colleagues to work more effectively and efficiently.
And then one day, I stopped dreaming.
I stopped dreaming because I got tired. I was burning out, and somewhere along the way, I had transitioned from dreaming mode to survival mode. Dreaming did not cause me to burnout, but burnout did cause me to stop dreaming. I no longer had the capacity to dream. And I didn’t dream again for five years!
It wasn’t until my mentor asked me two years ago if I had any dreams that I even realized that I had stopped. As I have prayed, reflected and studied, I have realized that dreaming is critical to my wellbeing, to my perspective on life, and to becoming the woman God created me to be. We all face adversity, disappointment, tiredness, and sometime, burnout. But none of these have to mean we stop dreaming.
So I ask you, what are you dreaming about?
Resources
Need to remember your dreams? Emily recommends cueing up one or more of these movies: Rudy, Chariots of Fire, Hook, Apollo 13.
A good book to help you sort out your dreams and what it takes to restart your pursuit is by Bruce Wilkinson. Check it out.
Lost dreams is just one of many challenges in the workplace. The Navigators have launched a three-year project to find out more…and to hear about what seems to help. To get your own voice into the project, follow this link.
