Dream Darwinism: Survival of the Fittest Fantasy.

“My parents’ dream [for me] has to die in order for my dream to come alive,” said Helen in her recent business coaching session.

Alright, let’s cut through the bullshit like a hot knife through artisanal butter. Yes, we’ve all got dreams. Many of them come from our parents.

These dreams are like two kids in the backseat of a car, each poking the other, screaming, “I’m not touching you!” It’s annoying. It’s loud. And you’re thinking, “Do I have to drop one of these fuckers off at the nearest orphanage to get some peace?”

But here’s some relief: You don’t have to abandon one dream to chase the other. This is like arguing over who shot first, Han Solo or Greedo. Spoiler: your dreams don’t care!

Back to Helen. She’s got dreams. Big ones. And she’s been playing this mental tug-of-war, thinking one dream must keel over for the other to stand tall. But that’s just the kind of thinking that leads to a life of “What if?” and regretful tattoos.

The Dream Faith Wars

So, why all the tug-of-war about our dreams? Because let’s face it, we’re a bunch of overzealous lemmings taking Olympic-sized leaps of faith off our dream cliffs.

And when we smack the ground? It’s not a face-plant; it’s a full-on, teeth-rattling, welcome-to-reality check. It’s every single ‘what if’ echoing back with the subtlety of a jackhammer at 5 AM after a bender.

What most of us dream chasers need is a bridge. This bridge isn’t a rickety, Indiana Jones, might-fall-to-your-doom kind of bridge. It’s a solid, grand, “I can strut my stuff here” kind of bridge. It’s the kind of bridge that allows you to saunter from Dream 1 to Dream 2 with the swagger of an architect.

But for Helen? She needs to take little leaps of logic, the ones that are more “calculated risk” and less “YOLO.” These are the leaps you take when you’ve got just enough know-how not to faceplant into the unknown. They’re small, they’re scrappy, and they’re damn effective.

What are leaps of logic?

Picture it: two arrows, curving towards each other in a beautiful, balletic arc. One arrow is your learning leap — it’s got a bit of a downward trajectory because, let’s face it, learning can be a downer. It’s the “I have no idea what I’m doing” dance, and you’re doing it in public.

But then, as if by magic (or, you know, hard work), the arrow starts to curve upwards. That’s the application leap, where Helen can take all that gritty, grimy knowledge she has scraped together and turn it into something that resembles progress.

They’re the bricks and mortar of her bridge. Each one is a tiny victory, a mini revolution in the saga of Helen. They’re not the leaps that make a legend in one fell swoop. They’re the leaps that build the road, piece by piece, until one day she looks back and thinks, “Holy hell, I built that!”

And here’s the kicker: this bridge, it’s a thoroughfare. It’s bustling, it’s alive. It’s not just a connection between two points — it’s a superhighway of synaptic firings and heart-thumping moments. It’s where Helen can have her existential cake and eat it too, walking between her dreams like a boss.

Larger Leaps of Logic

But wait, there’s more. Once she has the hang of this bridge-building bonanza, Helen can start taking larger leaps. Not because she’s reckless, but because she’s seasoned. Helen has the scars, the stories, and the swagger of someone who’s leapt and lived to tell the tale.

And every time she lands one of those leaps, the chorus of self-doubt that used to sing her to sleep starts to sound more like a bad karaoke night — off-key and easy to walk away from.

So, what’s the moral of the story? Build the bridge that only you can build. It takes a willingness to look at the gap between your dreams and say, “Yeah! I’ve got enough bricks for that.”

See Helen’s full coaching session on The Design Thinker’s YouTube channel.