Taking The Pressure Off My dreams
My husband's contract will be up in roughly three years. We signed an extension by accepting the Robins assignment. We didn't know that at the time, though, so heads up for anyone planning to get out and wanting to move. A PCS may extend the contract. We had two years left, so now we have three to finish this assignment. Turning down an assignment can be a career killer, but if you're already planning to get out at the end of your term, it probably doesn't matter as much.
Here's one of my dreams for the next three years: I want to replace my husband's income so that when the time comes to sign a new contract, he will only do it because he wants to. I don't want the pressure of this being our livelihood affecting his decision. The military was my husband's dream when he joined. But if the time comes and he discovers a new dream, I want him to be able to pursue that pressure-free. He's leaning towards making it a career right now, and I think he'll really enjoy this new assignment, but if the day ever comes when he wants to walk away, I want to be able to help him make that decision.
That's a big goal, though. As of today, I make 12% of what he does. That means I need to increase my income by roughly 800% (I think that's how the math works. Statistics has never been my strong suit). Regardless of how the math works out, there are two ways to increase my income. I can work more, and I can get paid more for the work I do. Most of us are working with those two options. We can either sign up for more hours at our job, which may or may not be feasible for our lives. Or we can get paid more for the hours we put in, which may mean switching companies or getting a promotion.
I've talked previously about the three ways to fund a dream and our lives. We can either have a job that we enjoy but has nothing to do with our dreams. This would be like working at a bank with good coworkers and using the income to travel the world. We can have our dream be the job itself. We see this a lot with people who dream of being doctors or teachers, granted one of those is a more livable income than the other. Or we can work on our dream until it does provide an income, which is my plan for my writing dream.
I genuinely believe that one day, my work on this dream will produce an income that meets and surpasses my husband. That may be more than three years down the road, or it may not be. I've been reevaluating this plan for myself recently, though.
I've been rereading the book Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert (she wrote Eat, Pray, Love, which is probably why her name sounds familiar). Big Magic is her book about living a creative life. It is not a work of fiction but rather a blueprint for how she does the things she's done. One of the biggest things I've been reminded of through this reading is that she worked many non-writing jobs. And it wasn't until she had far surpassed what many would deem as successful that she let go of those other jobs to go full-time writing.
Elizabeth Gilbert writes, "I held on to those other sources of income for so long because I never wanted to burden my writing with the responsibility of paying for my life. I knew better than to ask this of my writing because, over the years, I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pay their bills."
Creative living isn't necessarily about being a painter or writer. It's more about being brave enough to discover the treasures inside of you. For some people, that will play out on a canvas; for others, it will play out in a boardroom. For most of us, it will probably play out in a variety of ways across all aspects of our lives.
I love my dream. I love the moments when I feel inspired. I even find a way to love the moments when I am grinding through writer's block, exhaustion, or hard days because I love my dream so much. But I do not want to suffocate my dream by demanding things from it that it is not ready to provide. It would be unrealistic for me to expect this dream to replace my husband's income today. It may be unrealistic to expect that three years from now. It may even be unrealistic to ever expect this from my dream.
But I do believe that one day, it will happen. I know that will take investment on my part to achieve. And I know I have other dreams beyond this one that I want to see come true. Making all that happen will take work, planning, determination, and, in most cases, a decent amount of money. That's why I've decided to go back into insurance.
It's a company that I love where I'll be working with great people. I feel more prepared to tackle the job than I did eight years ago. I'll meet some amazing people while doing something that I really believe in. Who knows how long I'll do it this time around? Maybe it's a few months or years that put me in the position I want to be. Maybe it'll be a lifetime or side income to fund my dreams. Maybe I'll discover new dreams within it. I don't need to have that answer today. I just need to know it's right for me today, and I certainly got the clarity I needed.
We are all going to figure out the right way for us to achieve our dreams. Even the dreams that look the same on paper will vary in methods of achievement from person to person. That's how it is supposed to be. But I have recently been reminded of how fragile my dream is. If I put too much pressure on it, it will crumble, which is not something I nor my dream want.
I believe that our dreams were made for us. They come into our lives exactly when we need them and wait patiently for us to work to achieve them. If we turn our backs on them, they may leave to find someone else, but our dreams can only come true in specific ways with us. It's like having children. The child that is conceived in November is different from the child that would have been conceived a month later. It's not any less beautiful. There are just differences that we may never fully know or recognize.
We do have to put some pressure on ourselves to keep showing up and working in the most effective ways. Laziness will usually win by default, even if that's not what we want. But we have to put the right kind of pressure. We have to put the pressure on that encourages and motivates rather than pushing us into bed to hide under the covers. I want my dreams to thrive, and if that means finding a day job that gets me one step closer to some while removing pressure from others, that is precisely what I will do. I hope you have started to find the right ways to put pressure on yourself without suffocating your life or your dreams. It will always be a work in progress, but I am right beside you, figuring it out as we go along.