Safely Sharing Our Dreams

Thanks to Brittany for the pic~!

A friend of mine and I are constantly coming up with "million dollar ideas". It is a fun game we play in coming up with different projects we can engage in or ideas we might have for our lives down the road.  Frequently we joke that the difference between a person who makes a million dollars and a person who doesn't is taking the idea and running with it--actually ACTING on the idea.  For so many of us these ideas don't even see the light of day, they never leave the recesses of our brain, they never get shared, discussed or talked about.

Earlier this week I was talking to my nearest and dearest about how common it is to shoot down ideas.  When someone comes up with a new plan for a career or project, the first reaction of those closest to them  is to say all the reason's it is a bad idea.  Sounds terrible doesn't it?  But I have found it to be true.  So frequently by the time my clients have come into see me, they have heard so many negatives and challenges associated with their dream they are too exhausted and tired to even mention the dream to me.

I have to assume and hope, that these people believe they are being helpful, offering constructive criticism or protecting the person from getting hurt.  But really in my mind they are just keeping that person down, and putting them 'back in line'.  There are very few dream validators out there.  Very few people that allow us to share what's on our hearts and minds and give us the room to explore it, look at it, check it out.  Very few people who will say, sounds cool, let's see what happens who allow us to entertain the idea of doing something new, different and maybe even a bit 'out there'.  Ironically, most of the time, our dreams aren't that crazy, or 'out there' they are just different then what we are doing now.

But honestly, many of the 'comforts' we have now TV, airplanes, cars, computers, and ipods wouldn't be here if someone somewhere hadn't thought 'what if one day we could carry 5,000 songs on a little tiny device as big as my hand?" and more importantly if someone somewhere hadn't said "that sounds cool, how might that work?"  We all need dream validators in our lives, we need to let the dreams, ideas, thoughts that come into our brains have a safe place to fall.

Who are your dream validators?  Who are the people you can share your dreams with? How open are you to listening to other people's dreams and ideas?  Are you a dream validator?

*************
Looking for a safe place to share your dreams?  Click here to schedule your free 20 minute Get to Know you Session!  Not in Columbus?  No worries--I also work via phone and Skype.