Dream a little dream

 I've been thinking about this post for a while. My personal development and inspiration has had a huge growth spurt over the past few months. It started when I was perusing the shelves of a book store and stumbled upon this book called How to have a brilliant life, I thought about adding it to my Christmas list. But then I just decided to order it (it's so much cheaper online anyway). At the beginning of each chapter, you have to rate yourself in different categories of your life. It gave me amazing insight on my goals. I did a lot of reflecting. Thinking. Planning and organizing ways to strengthen weak areas of my life. Sometime after reading it, I was introduced to TED. How I didn't know about TED before still baffles me. I was blown away by the discovery. For a few months, and sometimes still, TED talks took up most of my free time. I took TED with me on runs, on bus rides, listened while crafting, while working, at the gym. These are a few of my favorite talks among others:

Steve Jobs' "How to live before you die,"

Simon Sinek's "How great leaders inspire action"

&

Amber Rae's "The art of being unreasonable"

I've also subscribed to a few blogs I've found inspirational: 

Hannah Brencher's, founder of The World Needs More Love Letters and 

Sid Savara's personal development blog. 

Hannah wrote a blog post recently that described my feelings lately. 

It perfectly put my thoughts into words.

But I have to be honest & truthful that I’ve been in a funk lately.

I’ve been a little sad. I’ve been questioning a lot of things. And I’ve just wanted to come onto this page and say, “It’s so dang hard to move forwards sometimes when you don’t know what you’re supposed to do next.” 

It seems like my funk is caused by so many different things though lately. One day it's the weather that's getting me down, the next day I'm unhappy about my job situation. Some days I'm homesick, or just uninspired, lethargic or confused. It's sometimes so unclear to me, but indeed the past few weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster ride of emotions. I don't know what to do and I don't know where to go next. I'm scared and just plain nervous of my next big move. 

Is it possible to feel *too* inspired and so therefore it makes my ideas sound crazy and unreasonable? Yes. I think so.

Yesterday, I read Sid's blog and this quote especially stood out to me:

This is your life we are talking about. This is the one thing you have, the one shot, the one opportunity that you must make the most out of, because when it’s gone - it’s gone. And you’ll either look back on it with contentment or with regret.

I know, because in my research of life regrets of the dying, I came across Bonnie Ware who cared for the dying and said their most common regret was “I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

That quote resonates so deeply with me right now. I want to be selfish and finally reach the stars. I want to make these dreams come true. I want to experiment. Play. I want to finally turn these ideas into actions and I want to do it now. For a few weeks, I was scared of the fear I was feeling when I thought about my dreams and ideas. 'I don't know where to start. I don't know if I can really do it.' 

But Amber Rae's values came to me at the right time:

> Lean Into Fear: fear is an indicator that you’re on the right path

> Talk Less, Do More: you are what you consistently do
> Boldly Experiment: embrace uncertainty and realize what’s possible
> F*ck Mediocrity: we don’t have to do things the way we’ve been told
> Vulnerability is Power: have the courage to be authentic
> Better self = Better world: to change the world, start with you
> Real Time Feedback: healthy, honest communication

Amber also talks about having an "AHA moment" in her TED talk. 

Well, I had one. And then I cried. I was so moved by the idea and the prospect of making it happen. I felt like, though I might not be the best at it (yet), I love every single thing about it. And then I remembered that "your dream job doesn't exist, you must create it." And oh how I love the idea of my baby dream right now.

Anyway, I am now reading Simon Sinek's Start with WHY and I'm starting to realize that this UNREASONABLE idea that's bursting inside of me is happening because it's floating around in the limbic part of my brain. The part that's controlled by emotions, behaviors, feelings - and is not associated with language at all. So when you try to explain WHY you want to do something totally unreasonable like quit your job to start your own business and no one seems to understand, it's because you simply cannot put those emotions into words to justify them (kind of like when I told people I was getting married!). It doesn't make sense to the realist or the analyst, but it makes perfect sense to you. 

So to my baby dreams, my hopes and goals that are fluttering inside of me...stay put and I promise I will work hard to make you bloom and flourish into something beautiful and well-worth the wait.