“Dare to dream! If you did not have the capability to make your wildest wishes come true, your mind would not have the capacity to conjure such ideas in the first place. There is no limitation on what you can potentially achieve, except for the limitation you choose to impose on your own imagination. What you believe to be possible will always come to pass – to the extent that you deem it possible. It really is as simple as that.” – Anthon St. Maarten

By Dawn Onley

Five years ago, I took part in a life coach training class. In one of the exercises, the instructor gave us 60 seconds to jot down our wildest dreams. She wouldn’t allow us to think too long. Instead, she encouraged us to just write down whatever flowed out of our minds and onto the sheet of paper in front of us.

“What if it’s something we didn’t intend to write down, because we’re being rushed?” someone asked. The class laughed.

“If it’s something that you write down, chances are it’s something that you dream about, even if it’s in the deep recesses of your mind,” the instructor responded. “After all, it came from your mind.”

I thought this was a useful exercise as it tapped into our hidden longings. It made us consider that we may not even be fully aware of some of our dreams. The ones we focus on the most are generally the ones that rise to the surface (e.g. find lasting love, build a family, etc.), but what this exercise also revealed to me were the dormant dreams that we may not focus on with the same intensity every day, but that we still deeply desire. It was truly eye-opening.

These were on my list:

Be my own boss.

Live in Cape Town, South Africa or Paris for a period of time.

Learn a foreign language.

Leave a legacy.

Get certified as a life coach.

Launch a blog.

Run another marathon.

Travel extensively.

Write books.

Become a real estate investor.

Wait, what?

Huh?

Do I really want all of this? Apparently in my wildest dreams I do! It’s what I wrote down in that class five years ago, when I had only 60 seconds and couldn’t stop my pen from writing and writing on that blank piece of paper.

“How could I possibly know if I’d even like writing a book? I’ve never done it,” I thought when the time was up. “Life coach. Really? Run another marathon? When the first one took everything I had and then some?”

The funny thing about dreams is once we’re fully aware of them, they don’t go away. They nag at us until we start our own business, launch the blog, or travel to that bucket list locale. Suddenly, we see images of our dreams jump out at us from the TV, on the magazine pages, while we’re out walking, as the runner waves and goes about her merry way. Everywhere, we see what we dream of, as vivid as the stars against the deep, black, country sky.

“The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul, a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.”– James Allen.

These seedlings are in our minds, just waiting to be born. If we’re not careful, these dreams may just find us getting a logo designed, scheduling meetings, and working on a new business Web site.

Do the exercise. Then, go catch your dreams!