So Where Do We Find The Money?
Dreams cost money to achieve. That is always going to be a piece of the puzzle. The dream of becoming a doctor that heals the sick means paying for medical school. The dream of traveling to Italy means paying for flights, hotels, and excursions. The dream of a fancy car means loan payments, insurance, and maintenance costs.
Even the “selfless” dreams still cost money. Fostering children requires money to feed extra mouths, get certified, and provide any essentials or “luxuries” that these kids may be missing. Giving to charity requires extra funds in the bank account. Donating a kidney requires a mode of transportation and good enough health insurance coverage or cash to cover the cost of surgery plus post-op.
Often, the bigger the dream, the bigger the price tag. That is especially true with our big- impact dreams. As military families often find themselves dealing with financial stress, the idea of dreaming of something bigger can be hard to do. People usually know what they want, though. We know the baseline things like paying bills on time, not using overdraft protection, or having a car we feel confident in. And usually, we know the bigger dreams, like taking the family to Disney World, going to Australia, or putting a pool in the backyard. And often, we know our high-impact dreams, like opening an animal shelter, funding a hospital wing, or helping local kids get to college.
It all comes back to money, though, and if you’re anything like most people I know, we could always use a little bit more in the bank account. That’s where I’m at. This PCS was expensive, but even without the PCS, my dreams were getting to a point where they needed a bigger financial investment. I can continue the way I have been and likely maintain my growth rate, but I am ready to start supercharging this impact.
So, I have decided to become more involved in insurance again. Rather than primarily sitting in the background doing work for my parent’s office, I will also get back out in the field to meet with and protect families. This is a big step for me. It’s something I walked away from four years ago because I knew it wasn’t my dream anymore, but I have realized that even if it isn’t my dream, it is an excellent means to help me fund my dream.
There are a couple of different ways to make money to fund our dreams. First, and probably the simplest option, is that our job is our dream. The people who dream of being doctors, lawyers, or teachers find a way to fund their lives by living their dreams. That being said, these people often find that the dream is not enough, especially if they dream of being teachers in the U.S.
This brings us to our second option: a job is just a job, and that income funds our dreams. Yes, it would be magical and perfect if every moment of every day felt like living the dream, but that’s just not possible for most of us. So we get a job that maybe we don’t love, but we also don’t hate. We work with good people, doing something that needs to be done, and make a decent income doing it. Then, we get to take the income that remains after paying bills and use it for the stuff we dream about, like collecting guitars, seeing comedians, and upgrading the sound system in our living room.
Then, there’s the option of building a dream that funds our life. This is different from the first because the first usually involves going out to get a job, which may not be the easiest thing in the world, but often, if we have the right education, we can eventually work our way into the field and up to the job we want. In this scenario, we have a dream that will ultimately (hopefully) bring an income, but until then, we don’t have anything else coming in from this source. This would be like people who dream of becoming influencers in a market, opening a restaurant, or what I’m doing by building a program to help military spouses find and achieve their dreams. In the ideal world, these things eventually turn a profit, but a lot of work and investment goes in before that happens.
Most people will find themselves somewhere in the middle of these options. You figure out what works best for your life. In our life, I love being a stay-at-home mom for our 14-month- old, so I’ve found a job that will work really well as something part-time. This job, in particular, is very flexible, so I can hire a babysitter or wait until my husband gets home from work. I can go out and work for a couple of hours or choose a few days a month to work away from home while ensuring I’m there for the things that matter to me.
We are fortunate that my husband’s income pays for our life. I want more, though. We have dreams, and I don’t want to wait years to save up for them to come true. So, I’ve made the decision to go back to work so that anything I make can be used to fund those dreams. We have big plans to visit Canada this year (friends are getting married there) and then go to Germany and Japan over the next three years to see friends stationed overseas. Those all come with price tags. They are all amazing trips that we want to go on. And they all matter beyond the dream of us seeing a new place. We’ll get to maintain and strengthen these relationships that matter so much to us. Returning to work means we get to do these things with financial peace of mind rather than building up our credit card debt.
It may not be fair that our dreams cost money, but that doesn’t make us any less accountable for achieving them. I genuinely believe that dreams are put in our lives for precise reasons. No matter how big or small a dream is, it is there to change our world. And by changing our world, we will see ripple effects that change the whole world. We have to figure out how to make it work because no one else will make our dreams come true.