Note: For ten weeks, I am using the Dream Coaching® program to work on my dream of finishing and publishing a book about my trip to Uganda, and I am reporting on my progress in my weekly column. As always, my column is posted on my blog every Friday. To read the series from the beginning, start with the introductory post, dated May 3, 2013.

I went to the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres last week to see “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” one of my all-time favorite musicals. I love every one of the songs in that show, and I’m still humming and singing them a week later. Especially memorable is the song Joseph sings at the start and close of the show, which ends with the line, “Any dream will do.”

I was a big fan of “Joseph” long before I ever became a Dream Coach, or even heard of Dream Coaching. But I enjoy it all the more now, especially as I’m once again going through the program on my own, working on my latest dream. And the timing for my seeing the play couldn’t be more perfect, because this week’s session is about accessing your dreamer.

Your dreamer is that part of you that sees and embraces all possibilities, no matter how unlikely or unrealistic they may seem. It’s the internal voice that inspired Martin Luther King Jr. to dream of a world without racial prejudice, and John F. Kennedy in 1961 to dream of putting a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

Often, our dreams get crushed before they even get off the ground because of the doubter that also resides inside of us. Next week’s session deals with the doubter, but this week is all about imagining the possibilities, and determining which of our dreams we’d like to work on first. I’ve already been working on a specific dream, but I still did this week’s assignment of coming up with a dream in different areas of my life.

You can do this, too. The categories listed in the Dream Coaching program include Personal, Professional, Relationship, Health, Family, Community, Financial, Fun, and Spiritual. But you can create any – and as many – categories as you like. Spend a few minutes coming up with something you’d like to accomplish in each area, something you’d be pursuing already if you didn’t have to worry about how much time or money it might take, how much education or training you might need, or how many obstacles or roadblocks you might encounter. These are real concerns that you’ll deal with later, but for now you’re not working on the details. You’re working on the dream, and there should be no limits to your dreaming.

Some of the dreams I came up with in different categories – in addition to the personal dream of finishing and publishing the book about my trip to Uganda – include a professional dream of designing and developing new programs and products to help people find the buried treasure in their lives, a community dream of helping to build – and then attending the opening of – a Miracle Village of Hope and Healing in Uganda, and a dream of family vacations in different parts of the country and the world. I put this dream in the Relationship category, but it could also have gone in Family or Fun. These are pretty ambitious dreams, but just as appropriate would be dreams such as losing ten pounds, getting organized and clutter-free, or signing up for singing lessons.

After you come up with dreams in different areas of your life, decide which one is the most important to you right now, or the most exciting and intriguing, or the most relevant to your long-range plans for the future. The other dreams can remain on your list for now, but choose one to start working on right away. Spend some time thinking and writing about how it would feel to accomplish it. Push aside the voices that say, “Are you kidding? You’ll never be able to do that.” Or, “Where are you going to get the money?!” Or, “Sure – someday maybe, but not now.” Create the successful completion of the dream in your mind, and then take the time to savor it.

In the weeks since I started this, I’ve also been working on the book first thing every morning, and I’m getting close to having a solid first draft finished. There’s still a lot of work to be done after that, but I’m thrilled to have gotten this far, and I’m excited about what’s still ahead.

If you’re working on a dream at the same time I’m working on mine – or if you’d like to start – remember that your dreams belong to you alone. No one can take them away from you, and no one is entitled to pass judgment on them – or on you for having them. And always remember that there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you want it badly enough and are willing to do the work you need to do to achieve it. Much of what you need – or need to know – will come to you once you get started and get going, so don’t worry about any of that now. All you need at the beginning – all you need in order to get started – is a dream.

And any dream will do.

The column “Find Your Buried Treasure” appears weekly in the Chanhassen (MN) Villager. This column was published on May 30, 2013.
©Betty Liedtke, 2013
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