Do you ever feel like starting all over? I love art making because in a way you get to start over every time an artwork is finished and another is begun. But I am also talking about big changes such as switching careers, or doing something entirely different or starting a new business, perhaps in an area you are unfamiliar with. The crazier, the bigger the dream is, however, the less one tends to talk about it with people. If it seems outlandish to you what will it seem like to other people?
So the really big ideas, the really big desires, left unspoken, can often go quietly dormant. I think about this fact all the time. Lately I have been dreaming about setting up a sailboat with an internet connection so I could sail to tropical islands, stay connected with all of you via satellite and keep making art in different locations.
I also want to go see the gorillas in Uganda. I would like to do enormous murals on the sides of buildings. Those are my top three right now. What would you do if you could do anything?
These thoughts are fun but daunting. First of all, I am not entirely sure I would be happy doing any of them. Secondly, I have no idea really how to get from here to there. It just feels overwhelming, and after thinking about it for 10 minutes isn’t it way easier to go to the studio as I do every day and make Art? Isn’t that challenging enough?
After all, not so long ago, being able to make Art full time was just a dream of mine. I am so glad I didn’t shelf that one. So then, how does one go from A to B? How do Dreams become real?
I don’t entirely know, but from pulling off a few in my life I am beginning to see a pattern in the manifestation of dreams.
Write them down and they begin to grow.
I have a little ritual I do at the beginning of the week where I write down big ideas I am thinking about for the present and for the future. In doing this and reviewing these entries every week it puts these ideas back in the forefront of my thinking. Every week I just keep seeing them. Over time they become familiar and the ones that resonate stay and the ones that do not, fade away. The ones that remain tend to grow in importance.
Synchronicities as Cheerleaders
Like when you learn a new word and then for several days after you keep seeing that word, putting ideas and dreams repeatedly in the forefront of your thinking invites synchronicities and alignments into your day that seem to almost naturally grow these ideas. For example, once I write down I want to go see the gorillas in Uganda, I might meet someone by coincidence that just returned who encourages me to do the same. I do not understand why this occurs in one’s life, but I am just reporting my experience. Begin to articulate a dream and it begins becoming a reality. The universe almost sends things your way to help you on your path.
Leveraged Dreams are actualized quicker.
So sailing around the world, blogging and making art and somehow uploading it to the world via a satellite while exploring the South Pacific does seem a tad unrelated to what I am currently doing…driving a car, often in traffic to a studio and spending way too much time on Facebook.
However, pieces of that dream or that idea – the idea of being somewhere tropical or being able to work remotely far away from my studio – are not. So maybe instead of just drastically changing everything, I could move towards it by just simply talking to people about it. Maybe I could take my next lunch break and walk around the harbor in Sausalito (My studio is next to a harbor – no coincidence) and look at the sailboats that are anchored offshore and imagine what it would be like. I could write about it a little in a blog post perhaps.
The idea is to take steps towards your big goals and dreams from a situation that you have already created inroads into. It wouldn’t be that hard to make my whole business scene remote, as I am halfway there already. Since I already write a blog that allows me to talk to a lot of people, maybe if I wrote about a dream of mine here, someone reading might say something helpful. Who knows?
I do know, however, that never saying out loud what you truly want or desire is not helpful in the actualization of those desires.
I think it all boils down, once again, to how we think about everything. Is our life static? How hard is it actually to change everything? Is it just hard or is it just our thinking that limits us?
Marianne Williamson in her wildly popular book “The Law of Divine Compensation” eloquently sums this idea up….
“It is not our circumstances then, but rather our thoughts about our circumstances, that determine our power to transform them.”
So maybe jot down what you want to happen or better yet tell someone else or tell your dream in a comment below. From my experience it is the first tiny step towards allowing your dreams to come true.
In gratitude, Nicholas
