How to Grow a Dream

This was one of my posts for Just Be Connected and I love it so much I am posting it here too.

They say that every blade of grass has its own angel that bends over it and whispers “grow, grow, grow”. I have discovered that in order to grow your dream, you have to be that angel. You have to gather your dream up in a fluffy blanket and wrap it so it feels warm and secure, just like a baby. Then you hold your dream in your arms, close to your heart, rocking a little from side to side and you whisper, grow, grow, grow.

Your dream will hear you. Like an infant it will respond to the warmth and love in your voice and in your touch. It will know that it is important to you and that you are there to help it grow into your vision.

Perhaps your dream is to decorate canvases with the bright colours of your soul, or perhaps you coax forth form and substance from clay or wood. Perhaps your dream involves scrapbooking and you gently craft the memories of life. Perhaps like me, your dream involves words and stories, the fabric of which can wrap around you and transport you to other times, places, realities. I love words, and I love crafting them so they have meaning to myself and others.
We are all creators with a dream. Once we have accepted our dream and hold it in our arms and whisper for it to grow, grow, grow, we then have to take action. Dreams are like babies – if you wait for them to do all the work of looking after themselves and helping themselves to grow up, you will be waiting a long time!

Make a list of something you can do every day to work towards your dream. It can be as simple and small as looking at colour swatches for your next painting project, or reading a chapter of a business related book. Perhaps you could take one photograph every day, or sign up for a class on scrapbooking. You could start a blog, or start visiting the blogs of people whom you admire and leave comments to encourage them and the community they (and maybe you) are a part of. All of these little tiny steps will help your baby dream to grow. Ask for input from others, join a networking group or take 10 minutes out of your day to set up a workspace.

If you are further along in your progress towards your dream you might have a dream that resembles a screaming toddler! It might be wonderful and fulfilling part of the time and an absolute hectic tear-your-hair-out mess at other times. This is definitely the time to seek outside opinions and assistance. Clarify what your dream is, what you need to do to achieve it and how you can best help it to grow in the direction of your vision.

I hope all of you have dreams that you wrap in those fluffy blankets and nurture. The world needs more dreams and more people like you – people who believe that dreams can come true and are on the way to nurturing their dreams into reality.

“A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”- Oscar Wilde