Characteristics of a Dreamer Part 2
I am undecided if this will be the last piece I write about the characteristics of a dreamer. There are so many attributes that we must have to dream and even more that we need to achieve our dreams. For most of us, we already possess these characteristics. We just need to strengthen them in some areas. Everything that we talk about related to the skill of dreaming is learnable. Because it is a skill, we can grow and develop it. Where we are at today is not where we have to stay.
I am grateful that these are all skills because if they were something we were born with, there would be nothing to discuss. Either we have it, or we don’t. Thankfully, that is not the case. When I talk about these attributes, I hope you don’t feel overwhelmed or discouraged if there are areas you feel like you are lacking in. I am sharing these skills not to shame anyone but to show us all the spots we should target to improve in. When we know what is missing, seeking out specific podcasts, books, teachers, etc., is much easier to help us improve.
For part 2 of these characteristics, I want to talk about faith and imagination. Like self-esteem and confidence, these go hand in hand. When we grow and improve in one, the other develops also. We’ll start the same way we did with part one, defining these terms. Oxford states that faith is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” (Confidence really does play into everything; if you are looking for one skill to grow in, that is definitely it!).
My favorite part about the definition of faith is that it is both internal and external. You can draw faith from that external source, whether you believe in God, the universe or another unseeable entity. You can also pull faith from within yourself. If you don’t believe in anything of a religious or spiritual nature, faith can still be a powerful force in your life. All faith means is that we trust the source to provide, whether that source is ourselves or someone else.
Believing in an external spiritual entity is not a requirement for dreaming. Believing in yourself and trusting your heart is. When our hearts tell us our dreams, we must be willing to trust them. We have to believe that our heart is not trying to steer us in the wrong direction. We have to have faith that one day, even if we have no idea how these dreams can come to fruition.
External sources of faith don’t have to be religious. We can also draw faith from mentors, leaders and loved ones. I have faith in my husband, and when I doubt my dreams, I can turn to him for encouragement because I have complete trust that he won’t lead me in the wrong direction. I can do the same with my parents and siblings. I am very blessed to have these sources and my belief in God to turn to when I get overwhelmed with doubt. Who are these trusted sources for you?
In my post Fighting For Our Dreams: My Journey Through the Battle and Beyond, I shared that my dad and my therapist were the ones to affirm this dream. I lacked faith in myself when I first discovered this dream. I heard this dream so clearly, but I did not know if I could achieve it. I needed an external source to validate it.
Faith is necessary when achieving a dream, but it is essential when we start dreaming because we have to trust the dreams we hear. If, like my writing dream, we need external validation, we can seek it out. But, first and foremost, we must have internal faith to trust the dreams we are hearing. My doubts related to this dream did not come from doubting my heart. I believed this dream was meant for me, but my lack of knowledge and confidence on how to achieve it filled me with so much doubt. That’s why I needed the external validation, but I didn’t need that endorsement to write it down on my dream sheet. (I’ll talk more about this when we discuss activities to discover dreams.)
How do we develop faith? If you are religious, then spending time in the spiritual book of your belief, reading interpretations, studies or books, and listening to sermons or podcasts can grow your beliefs. I know I feel much more steady in my faith when I am actively spending time exploring and developing within it. Make a list of the people in your life who can act as these external sources, and don’t deviate from it. If someone who is not on your list tries to tell you that a dream isn’t for you, then don’t listen because they didn’t make the cut for a reason. These are people who genuinely believe in your potential, that you can be completely vulnerable with and those with great love to share for you and with you.
We develop faith in ourselves by listening to the small things. In part one of this series, I talked about looking for the times when our hearts did show us the right way to go. We build faith in ourselves by learning to trust our instincts. This can be as simple as ordering sushi for dinner when you have a craving or as grand as moving halfway across the country for someone you love (and we’ve all done that one as military spouses, just because there were orders involved doesn’t mean that it wasn’t a leap of faith where you followed your instincts). When we begin to trust the simple to engage thoughts that say we should get out of bed or go to a squadron event that we are nervous about attending, then we build our faith in what our hearts are telling us and we become ready to trust our hearts when they ask us to chase the big things.
Let’s move on to imagination. Oxford defines imagination as “the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses.” Faith gives us the freedom to unleash our imagination. We all have an imagination; some of us have just locked ours in a box since the fourth grade. It is our faith that allows us to imagine, to see something that is not there. It is what enables us to see the vision of the leaders we follow so clearly. Our faith in them allows us to see where following them would take us. It is faith in our marriage that allows us to see growing old together. It is our faith in the community that causes us to attend squadron and spouse events over and over until we find the friendships we desperately need.
When we were little, all we needed to prime our imagination was some sticks outside that could turn into swords, or for me, it was a dollhouse in which my sister and I could create elaborate stories within. We never lose that part of ourselves, and while I am not trying to get you to break out some old Polly Pockets or start chasing each other through the woods with sticks (though if you want to, go for it!), I do want to awaken that childlike imagination that we all once had. This imagination allowed us to answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with answers ranging from astronaut to princess to movie star, despite those careers having a one-in-a-million shot of coming true.
But we didn’t care about the facts. We knew that people became astronauts, and we were people. We knew that some girls grew up to be princesses (shoutout to Kate Middleton and Megan Markle for making that dream come true. I know they aren’t technically princesses, but that is as close as one can get by marrying into the royal family). We knew that there were a lot of movie stars out there and that there must be room for one more. At the time, we didn’t see the work and luck it would take to become those things. We just knew we wanted them.
I know many of us have outgrown our childhood career goals, but if you haven’t, you should fight for them. That’s a dream. That doesn’t mean you’ve given up on a dream if you have outgrown it. It means that it isn’t a fit for your life anymore. There is a massive difference between quitting because it’s too hard and deciding not to pursue something because we just don’t want it as much as we thought we did.
The real power of our childhood imagination was our ability to suspend disbelief. It didn’t matter that we were holding sticks on a playground in the middle of nowhere because we knew we were actually on a pirate ship fighting Captain Hook to save Neverland. When it comes to discovering our dreams, we have to suspend disbelief. Our imagination will aid us in creating unique ways to achieve our dreams, but more than anything, our imagination helps us find our dreams. It allows us to project forward weeks, months and years into the future and see what could be, what would be if we only decide to pursue it.
Imagination might seem like one of the more challenging skills to develop. It can very much feel like you either have it or you don’t. Especially when playing pretend with a toddler is the most tedious thing one can do. But it is actually one of the simpler skills to grow. If there are young children that you spend time with, then you can borrow imagination from them. Ask them questions and listen to the wild things they answer with. There is magic in how well a three-year-old listens to their gut.
I had dinner with a friend and her second grader a few years back and he was telling me what he wanted to be when he grew up. It was a mix of inventor, engineer and pilot (like his dad). He was so confident and excited to tell me about everything he hoped to accomplish one day. He didn’t care that simultaneously pursuing three careers would probably be too much. He didn’t care that inventing something new, meaningful and respected was perhaps one of the hardest things anyone could do. He didn’t care about any of it because he just knew what he wanted. He knew what his passions were and that one day, in some way, he would turn that into an extraordinary life.
Borrow the faith you had as a child in those dreams you wanted to chase. A lot of them may not be relevant to your life today, and a lot of them may be. It really doesn’t matter. What matters is the mindset. What matters is the joy we find in the search. What matters is that we go into this process ready to discover something new, knowing that it will change our lives.
