Chasing A Rabbit Might Lead To A Dream Come True
This new venture with insurance led to another dream come true today. This method of sales involves presenting in front of a group of people. My partner and I did the presentations this week and have started moving into the appointment phase of the process. Because of our early success with the program, we were invited to speak on the national conference call this morning.
It was an incredible honor to be invited, something I never expected to happen. Getting back into insurance is primarily a means to an end. It is a job that I like, that I am relatively good at, and it can bring in a significant level of income that would allow me to invest more in my dreams. My dreams of growing big with the company have long gone away since I realized they were never really mine to begin with.
But just because it isn't my end goal doesn't mean I am not incredibly proud of my achievements. I have stuck with this company for so long because they are my family, and no matter where my dreams take me, I always want to be there with the ones I love.
When I set my goal of being a guest on a podcast, I fully expected it to be talking about something related to military spouse life. I expected that for two main reasons. First, supporting military spouses is my overarching goal. So, if I were doing what I should be (which I haven't been) by reaching out to fellow military spouse podcasters, that would seem like a natural result. Second, I had zero expectations of being invited on a company call because I have never been all that impressive of a performer. My goal has always been to do enough for me and my family, but I never planned to go beyond that. Meanwhile, I have a sister in the business who is trying to do those high-level, high-achievement things so she gets recognized much more (as she should).
It may not have come true how I expected, but it was undoubtedly a dream come true. When I decided to start back in insurance and in this newer system, my husband's biggest question was, "How does this help your dream?" He didn't want me doing something because of financial or familial pressure, neither of which were present. He also didn't want me to get distracted by the shiny new object, and rightfully so.
I knew that doing this process would help my dream, though, because I am not the person I need to be to fully see that dream come to life. Going through this has taught me more about speaking and people, which are all skills I need for success. It has also taught me a great deal about the financial and legal preparations that must be done during all stages of life. This is information that we would not have gotten anywhere else, and it does a great deal to set us up for the long term.
Before this, I had never invested such a significant amount of money in myself. Investing will always be an essential aspect of growing my dreams, so getting used to the idea of betting on myself and putting that into practice was a big deal. Before this, I had never spoken to a crowd for a significant amount of time. After this week, I have done three presentations in front of 115 people, which lasted one hour each. People looked to me as the expert on the subject matter, and I had done the learning I needed to support that.
It is so important to keep the main thing, the main thing especially when it comes to our dreams. If we spend too much time chasing squirrels or shiny new things, then we can find ourselves much further down the wrong path than we ever thought we would be. That being said, there is a way to further ourselves in other aspects of life without diminishing the value and energy we put towards our dreams.
Life happens, and we all have to deal with that fact. Some days are easier than others. For most of us, life requires us to have jobs, clean the house, and cook meals. Even if we split these roles with a partner, they can still take on a significant amount of mental and physical energy. As much as we would probably prefer not to spend our time mopping floors and performing routine maintenance on our cars (personally, I prefer having a mechanic do it, but that still means time waiting at the shop), it's part of life, so we have to do it to function and frankly, thrive within life.
Don't chase the rabbit so far off the path that you can't see any of your dreams. We have to be intentional about the ways that we use our time and the decisions we make. But that doesn't mean the path in front of us is the only way to get there. There are a multitude of ways to achieve our dreams. People have gone before us and blazed a trail, but that's not the only one out there. It is important to remember that the people who went before us did so because it was the right choice for them, and they probably had quite a few things that differed from our situation.
We are going to make mistakes when it comes to chasing our dreams. We will follow one path, thinking it is the best way to go, only to reach a dead end and have to turn back. But finding a path that doesn't aid us in some way will be very rare. We all have to serve our time somewhere, and skills learned in one spot are never lost. Maybe this rabbit will take me further off the path than I expected, or perhaps it will place me exactly where I need to be. Only time will tell. But for today, that rabbit helped me reach a dream come true and check off one more box on my goals for the years.