What there is to say about becoming the person you aspire to be and other thoughts about professional dreams.
You know how there are those dreams that feel too scary for us to dare going after? It’s a conversation I’ve been having repeatedly over the past couple of weeks and each time I talked about it with someone, I knew I had to write down my thoughts. Then I forgot I had that urge before the universe confronted me with that topic all over again. And so, here you go:
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How many times have you heard someone say they wanted to become a writer? But then when you talked to them a little more, they were too afraid to sit down to write and do so every day. How many times have you heard someone say they wanted to become an illustrator, only to realize they’d never show their drawings to others?
When you have a dream of who you want to become and you say to people that’s what you aspire to be, it feels like you tell them who you are. To you, it sounds like you know who you are and now people know too. Having a dream, an aspiration, helps communicate your identity and shout into the world what you as a person stand for. Additionally, without doing whatever activity needs to be done in order to become INSERT YOUR DREAM OCCUPATION HERE, you remain in the safe space of no possible failure. When you don’t do the work to become the person you want to be, you might never find out your dream isn’t as glamorous as you thought, but also you won’t have to look into the mirror and recognize you’re not as good as you’ve imagined you’d be. When you do nothing, you can’t be bad at it. It’s as simple as that.
Becoming something, becoming someone, takes a lot of practice. It takes getting up every day and trying again. One must keep practicing and not mind failing and failing over and over again. Some dreams, however, are so big they paralyze us, regardless of how brave we seem to be to the outside world. It’s often much easier to pursue things that allow excuses for failing. It’s easy for me to publish books in English because if someone pointed out they weren’t that good, I could always say I’m not a native speaker. Nevertheless, and just because I do something others might admire, it doesn’t mean I’m living to my fullest potential. It doesn’t mean I pursue the things that scare and paralyze me the most. It just means I get something done that seems to paralyze many others. Especially those who aspire to be writers.
I always felt one lives to their fullest potential if one ruthlessly pursues what’s way out of their comfort zone and is THEIR OWN big dream, not a fun project to do in their spare time.
I’ve realized it’s much harder to pursue things where failing feels scary. It’s scary to pursue an idea when you don’t have the self-confidence to say you can easily pull it off or find an easy excuse why it’s not as good as you’d imagine “your ideal you” could do if they tried. You might simply fear to be rejected on what you would articulate as your biggest dream if someone asked you.
When people ask a published writer how to become one, many respond: “Write!” I used to laugh at this, but lately, I’ve realized it’s actually all that is needed.
Practice makes perfect, and only those who go through the pains of self-realization and acceptance of their own shortcomings, yet have the determination and willingness to break through, will eventually be able to say they’re who they want to be. Or maybe they might realize they don’t actually want to be that person after all. And then, the next scary chapter in their life will start; having to find out who they want to be, which means having to push through the fear of not being worthy, not being good enough all over again. A vicious circle.
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