Make Your Dreams Specific

I don’t spend a whole lot of time looking through the catalogs that mysteriously show up in our mailbox, but one recently caught my eye. It was from an outdoor-focused tour company. The full-color booklet highlighted the hundreds of trips around the globe that you could take. There were itineraries, travel dates, and prices for various biking, hiking, and boating adventures.?

I’m generally not a package tour person, but I found myself absorbed by these treks. The Greek islands! Patagonia! There are places I’d like to visit, and I have put exotic destinations on my List of 100 Dreams, but the tour booklet showed me how it all might work in real life. If I did go to Greece, here are places I might see, things I might do, how long each trip component might take, and roughly how much such trips would cost. These details made my aspirations feel far more constructive.?

Dreaming in general is productive, but the more specific we can make our dreams, the more doable they feel. It’s one thing to want to write a book. It’s another to flesh out a book proposal or a plot outline. It’s one thing to want to live on a homestead in the country. It’s another to start looking through property listings and talk to current residents about their budgets and daily schedules.

Now, granted, once you start getting into the details, some of the glow of fantasy might disappear. Being warned that a trip is strenuous and might require heavy rain gear is a definite warning that all will not be perfect bliss. But so what? Nothing is ever perfect. At the end of our lives, it will probably be memories and not fantasies that make us feel fulfilled. So make your dreams specific. It will give you steps to take to start making these dreams reality.?

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