It would easy to assume people who never do anything towards achieving their dreams or goals are lazy or scared of failure. While for some that might be true, many are also fearful of the opposite, achieving their goal/dream.
Sounds a little illogical, right? When you step back and think about it, it actually makes a lot of sense. Many people define themselves by their journey they are on, myself recently included. I am a British immigrant living in Canada and up until a month ago the journey was centred around becoming a citizen. A month ago that was achieved.
I admit, my initial reaction was jubilation at having achieved my dream, followed by a little despondent because now I’d achieved my dream, what comes next?
That sense of helplessness is what leads a lot of people who are chasing, and achieve, their dreams to end up feeling depressed or sometimes worse once they have what they wanted. They’ve been so focused on and defined by the goal and the journey that they forget there are so many more things to experience outside of that dream and that once their initial dream has been achieved they can, and will, have others they can focus on.
Many people who achieve their goals don’t have someone to help find a new focus once their dream has become true. Fortunately, I am not in that category, I have a wonderful coach who I talked to about this somewhat lost feeling I felt shortly after getting my citizenship.
After some pondering and exploring some practical ideas I found something that sparked many of the same excitements as my journey to become a dual citizen, something that would use my knowledge and understanding of that process, as well as my desire to help others. It also is a longer term project that I can sink my teeth into. My next big journey is to train to be an immigration consultant. What’s even more exciting is it’s a great time to be looking into that line of work as the government is about to implement a huge shake-up in the industry due to a historical lack of central regulation. I’d forgotten it was something I had looked into years ago after going through my permanent residency application. I completed that myself but had a good friend who hired a consultant who was utterly useless. My friend said I was more help than her consultant and suggested maybe looking into that line of work. I did, and found I was left thoroughly confused about how to go about doing it and it was probably best to wait until I had my citizenship. Fast forward 4 years and now I have it so perhaps it’s time to rekindle that goal and see where it goes?
How can my experience help you find your next big dream?
I hope by sharing my experience if you have previously achieved a dream only to feel despondent and lost afterwards, that you take some comfort that the next dream may not been all that far away from you. It took me a single session with my coach and some bouncing of different ideas and pondering before I got the same spark I had when I first ventured down the path to emigrate to Canada. Now it’s still early doors and who knows my next dream might morph into something else but finding a spark is the most important part to starting exploring your next project because without a spark somewhere in the beginning you’ll quickly fizzle out when things get a little complicated or uncertain.
What if you’ve never had a dream before?
I come across this more often than you’d think. Some people go through life kind of feeling their way around without actually finding anything that gives them a spark of excitement or joy. I often find those people are people who have had some earlier trauma, which is one reason trauma work fascinates me so much. We have all had dreams as kids, sometimes even up to early adulthood but unfortunately much of our education system and life experiences can lead us to believing that dreams only exist in fairy tales.
I have worked with numerous clients where that has been the case. More often than not they had that dream part of their brain interrupted, perhaps by an innocuous comment not to be so stupid or foolish as a child, or by some major life altering event like the loss of a loved one or personal trial. I love helping people get back to a place where dreams start to happen again. It can be very exciting for a client and scary at the same time. Having the support and help of someone on that journey can be very helpful and it’s amazing to witnesses the changes in people as they start to follow through on doing things that help them materialize their dreams.
How to contact me if you’re stuck on dreams and achieving your goals:
Website: https://philiphickscoaching.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/pshicks
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philip.s.hicks
Instagram: @philip_hicks_coaching https://www.instagram.com/philip_hicks_coaching/?hl=en
Coaching with Phil 