Moving in the Direction of Our Dreams
“The journey itself is my home.”
-Matsuo Basho
In my blog, book, podcast, and social media posts, I’ve written many times about the importance of moving in the Direction of our dreams.
What do I mean by this? Shouldn’t we have Specific and Measurable goals?
There are times in life that we have extremely specific and measurable goals like financial goals, material goals, or fitness/health goals, as examples. In these cases you may know that you need to reach a very specific target. If you are trying to break a record for racing, as an example, then you have to have a very specific outcome to be successful.
Other times we are pulled towards something that is more ineffable. A feeling, a state of being, an emotional state, level of consciousness or just our happiness and well being. Following your heart and dreams with these immeasurable pursuits requires different skills, a different kind of courage, and it requires more flexibility to go with the flow and pivot as you discover new paths you couldn’t see when you took your first steps. In my book I described it like this:
“BACK TO MY ITALIAN JOURNEY. This experience has included so much synchronicity and serendipity that I’m no longer surprised by anything that happens in life. I’m simply along for the ride. It’s not like I’m getting pulled downstream and am hanging onto a life preserver—no—it’s more like surfing. I’m being pushed forward by something powerful, and I’m riding on top of it. I don’t control the wave, but my decisions and actions make micro changes to the direction it takes me. After decades of thrashing against the current, this is so much more fun!”
Carlo Pietro Sanfilippo, AfterLIFE, Waking Up From My American Dream
I’m experiencing this again in massive way right now.
At the moment, I’m back in Italy in the city of Turin in a 6th floor apartment with the french doors open and a lovely cool breeze coming in my room. I arrived in Italy just over a week ago to begin an adventure I’ve dreamt about for decades. And that is to leave home with just a backpack and simply live in other places. I’ve been planning for this for months. I’ve never done anything like this, I’ve only traveled for vacations and adventures. When I was preparing for this over the past several months my instinct was to “plan” like I always have for everything in my life. I was a financial planner for 27 years after all and old habits are hard to break.
My initial plan involved taking some Italian classes for the first few weeks I’m here to improve my grammar and vocabulary, then I’d dive into several weeks of exploring. Well, after a week of being in class I felt pulled to just park a while and really dive into my studies. I’ve learning so much and it feels great. In this moment I feel like taking the time to doing a deep dive into the things I want to learn and improve on is more important than just seeing lots of things. The feeling began almost immediately after classes started and I felt conflicted…like I’d be giving up something or breaking a promise to myself. Then, I remembered what I was seeking and this aligns more with with that. I’ve come to really embrace that I’m not “traveling”, I’m just living in a different place. That living and just being feels more peaceful than the world wind trip I had envisioned. I’ll surely go see more things…but all I know in this moment is that I think I’m going to park here “for awhile maybe longer if I do” (from the song Amie, by Pure Prairie League).
As I’m writing this I still don’t know my exact plans and that’s ok. I’m surfing. I’m feeling the wave beneath my feet. Feeling an energy that I’m in no way in control of…I’m just working to balance, making micro adjustments as I go, and enjoying this feeling.
Getting in touch with this aspect of life has been profoundly helpful. For too many years I set goals in stone and worked stubbornly to keep trying to do something instead of being more flexible. Life is more fluid than that. We get so attached to the way we think things should be. We fall in love with someone and think they are our everything. If it doesn’t work out we can waste years of life trying to fix and unfixable thing. We do the same for friendships, business opportunities, careers, and more.
Like I said in the beginning, there are some goals that are super specific, but for our happiness and growth being too specific…having too strong of an opinion about what you seeking can keep you from seeing opportunities that are right in front of you! Pining over a lost love might make you miss an amazing person right in front of you! Hanging onto unhealthy friendships will keep you from amazing relationships. Staying in a career you hate because you’ve defined your identity as being a specific thing could keep you from the most soul enriching opportunities that might even be more lucrative.
What has been helpful for me in pursing this more flexible mindset?
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