Blog Series: Living your Purpose

Blog One - Creating your Dream Life

There is something so liberating about finally realising that you are, in fact, your own worst enemy when it comes to living the life you dream of. This is because of the existence of the reciprocal principle: You are also your greatest advocate when it comes to living the life you dream about.
The reality is that, because it is ultimately up to you to make the choices that lead you toward your dreams, you are the one with the power and so you don’t need to rely on anyone else.
But equally, because it is up to you, this also means that you are the one that needs to go through the pain, challenge and difficulty to make it happen. This is unavoidable.
When we wait for someone else to do it for us, it will never be what we want. And the reality is that we very often won’t even recognise it as being our dream because we haven’t personally done the hard slog to get there.

All that said, the question becomes: How do I do the work of creating my dream life?

Many of us are very aware of what is not our dream life, but feel completely out of our depths in knowing what it is we really want our lives to look and feel like. We know what shuts our soul down, what we vehemently dislike and what drives our intense anxiety, anger or boredom. However, we struggle to identify what will set our souls alive and allows each day to be faced with joy and excitement. While we may look to others and envy the lives they lead – the online programmer who works every few months in a new city of her choice, or the dolphin trainer spending his time in the water – this doesn’t necessarily mean that we would love to do what they do. Very often it is something else entirely, something far more elusive, that creates the feeling of envy and interest within us. Perhaps it is the feeling of freedom and adventure within the life of the travelling programmer that we aspire to, or the connection with an animal spirit instead of an ego-maniacal boss that appeals to us in the life of the dolphin trainer. Unless we realise this we may find that  when we look at any path we‘ve taken in life, we experience discouragement with what appear to be dead-ends that never seem right for us.

My experience and research has led me to the following beliefs:

• Firstly, I have a deep knowing that it is possible to create your dream life.
• Secondly, it is essential to your - and other’s - happiness and fulfillment that you do find it!
• Thirdly, that there is never an end goal to the process of finding it – you are never ‘there’, and your dreams will change and develop in tangent with your growth.
• Fourthly, that it is not easy to walk this road to your dream - it takes courage, bravery and perseverance.
• And finally, it is entirely worth it – and everyone can do it!

How do we create our dream life then?
My thoughts are that it takes two competencies: the capacity to reflect and the capacity to imagine. Each of these takes on a particular flavour depending on the individual and circumstances involved, but essentially it is these capacities that form the fertile ground for our journey towards our dream life. Ultimately, it is our ability to reflect on the perceptions, assumptions and beliefs that are driving our behaviours and choices. This allows us increasing self awareness. And it is our ability to imagine that allows the creation and desire for movement towards a particular direction…and takes us toward our dream life.

Watch out for the next two blogs in this series that will deal with each of these independently.   

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