Backburner Dreams
In her book, Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg talks about a conversation between her friend and their Zen teacher, Katagiri Roshi:
A friend of mine was planning to move to Los Angeles with the hope of connecting with the music industry. He was a musician and songwriter, and it was time for him to follow his aspirations. Katagiri Roshi said to him, “Well, if you’ve decided to go, let’s see what your attitude is.”
“Well, I’ll try my best. I figure I have to give it a shot, and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. I’ll just accept it.”
Roshi responded, “That’s the wrong attitude. If they knock you down, you get up. If they knock you down again, get up. No matter how many times they knock you down, get up again. That is how you should go.”
Roshi makes a good point. Dreams come true because of perseverance. But before that comes the most essential step in making a dream come true… getting started.
I’ve noticed that there are many reasons why we will put our dreams on the backburner and delay going for it until that nebulous time in the future called “someday.” The three most common reasons that I see are ones that I’ve also used to put off getting started. If you’ve ever put a dream on the backburner too, check out the three reasons below. Maybe they’ll seem familiar to you as well.
#1 Time
This usually sounds like, “Life is too busy to focus on this right now.” And another variation that I sometimes hear is, “Maybe when I retire, I’ll have enough time.”
What I’ve realized is that usually when we say we don’t have the time, what we’re really saying is, “Something else is more important right now than my dream.” And that’s totally fine if it really is true. Because there might actually be more important demands on your time, really legitimate things like illness, a huge transition, or even life and death matters.
But if that’s not the case, then maybe it’s worth thinking about prioritizing the dream?
#2 Money
This usually shows up in two ways: 1) can’t see a way to make money doing the dream or 2) don’t have the money to start or grow the dream.
Here’s a thought… Maybe your dream isn’t meant to be your primary source of income. Maybe it’s meant to be a nonprofit. Or maybe it makes sense to start your dream as a side gig. It’s a popular idea worth considering. Did you know that the number of people doing freelance work on the side increased by 34% between 2016 and 2018?
Side gigging worked for me. I was still a full-time professional recruiter when I first dipped my toe in the water by taking on my first resume writing project in 2006. Back then I had a family to think of and couldn’t afford to take a head-first plunge. Ironically, my first client wasn’t a job seeker. My very first client wanted a resume to present to a venture capital firm so he could go after his dream to start a business.
#3 Fear
There are a few noteworthy fears, with fear of failure being the big one. What if you take the risk and it fails?
There’s also the fear of success. This is a really sneaky one! What happens if you get what you’ve desired, and it’s not what you expected? Maybe it won’t measure up, or maybe it will be bigger than you think you can handle.
And then there’s the fear of criticism. This one has many possible perpetrators, including your own inner critic, your loved ones, and other people you don’t know well but who end up weighing in anyway.
A wise person once said that you’ll never get what you want unless your desire is stronger than your fear. So true! And what’s also true is the fact that most of the time, our fears are totally unfounded. It’s just like Mark Twain once said, “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
Do you have a backburner dream? If so, what’s delaying you from taking it off the backburner and turning up the heat? I sincerely hope you won’t let anything or anyone keep you from going for your dream, and that includes yourself!
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Angela Loeb helps people who are on the threshold of career decision and transition. More at InSyncResources.com.
