4 Surprising Steps to Make a Dream Come True
Not what I expected — but they work (and here’s why)
My phone rang while I was on vacation. It was my lawyer.
I don’t know about you, but I always take calls from my lawyer. It either means something amazing has happened, or terrible news. Maybe both.
I usually ignore calls on vacation, but I took this one. It was bad news.
“I’m sorry to call during your holiday, but I thought you’d wanted to know,” my lawyer said. “They’ve completed the survey on your dream home. The whole attic has woodworm”.
We’d stretched our budget to the max to put in an offer on the house. There was no way we could afford to replace the roof beams and renovate the attic.
“Then we’ll have to withdraw the offer,” I said. We’d already invested thousands in getting to this point. I wanted to cry, but I swallowed back my feelings.
“Is everything ok?” my wife asked, as I hung up the phone. I explained what had happened. We were both gutted. The house was our dream home. A couple of minutes’ walk to the beach. You could see far out across the sea from the bedroom windows.
“Let’s forget about it and enjoy our holiday,” my wife said. We did that.
I’m not someone who believes all dreams can come true. I’m more like Paulo Coelho, who once wrote:
“It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting.”
So how can you chase that possibility?
We now live in a house a few minute's walk from the sea. The steps we followed to get here worked — but they also surprised me.
If you find life interesting because of the possibility to chase your dreams, I think you’ll like these steps. I explain what each step was, how it surprised me, and why I believe it worked for us.
Step 1: Write Down Your Dreams
Long before we lived anywhere near the sea (in fact, we were living thousands of miles from the coast at the time), I took a notebook and jotted down some of my dreams. I don’t remember all the dreams I wrote down. But I do know that one of them was to live in a house by the sea. This one stuck with me. So, when the possibility opened up to live in a new place, we realized that living by the sea was a dream we’d like to pursue.
How this step surprised me
I wrote down this dream as part of a law of attraction exercise. I was cynical about it, and feeling quite low at the time. I didn’t expect that writing my dream down would help at all. I just couldn’t see any other options.
Why it works
I now see that unless you know what your dreams are, you can’t make them happen. That’s what I like about the law of attraction. I don’t think it’s a magical way to always get what you want. You have to approach it with the right intentions — and hold it lightly. But it does help you get clear on what matters to you, so when opportunities come up, you’re more likely to see your dreams.
It’s like when you buy a new model of car. You start seeing that model of car everywhere when you never noticed it before. The same is true with dreams. You don’t see the doorways to your dreams when they come up, unless you know what your dreams are.
The takeaway: Write down your dreams. It means you’ll see opportunities to pursue them, which opens up more possibilities for them to come true.
Step 2: Hold Your Dreams Lightly
When the opportunity came up to live by the sea, we explored it with open hearts. We visited a few different places we might like to live in. Some of them were by the sea. Some had job opportunities we liked the look of. It wasn’t a case of “get the dream or nothing at all”. We had a range of options open to us, and each of them would have pulled us closer to different dreams.
How this step surprised me
I had always believed that if you have a dream, you should chase it with every fiber of your being, otherwise it doesn’t matter to you. I believed that if you held a dream lightly, it would never happen.
Why it works
When you don’t expect every dream to happen, that opens more doors to some of your dreams happening. And the more dreams you have, the more likely that some of them will happen.
Having your heart set on a single dream or a single outcome is a recipe for constant heartbreak. Don’t get me wrong, heartbreak is an important part of life, there are lots of lessons to be learned when life hurts. But it’s also good to have the joy too. I don’t want to be one of those people who live in constant bitterness because I had one dream and it’s been dashed on the rocks of life.
The Takeaway: When you hold your dreams lightly, you can enjoy the journey of chasing them, and the excitement of some of them coming true.
Step 3: Do a Test-Run of Your Dreams
When we moved beside the sea, we got a six-month rental contract on a property. That way we could see how we liked the new city we’d be calling home. We were a step closer to our dream. Without buying a house by the sea, we were living close to the sea.
How this step surprised me
I didn’t think you should hedge your bets when it comes to your dreams. I also thought that if you’re sure of a dream, you should already know it’s right for you. By taking a slower approach towards our dream, I realized that other ways are possible and even beneficial.
Why it works
When you find a new outfit in a store, you try it on for size, and you see how it looks and feels on you. That’s a small investment. With big investments, like pursuing dreams, I think it’s best to try things out if you can.
When dreams become reality, they are not always how we expect. Living by the sea wasn’t exactly how we expected. We thought it would be like a constant vacation. It’s not like that. Even so, we found that we liked it a lot, so we decided to commit and look for a home to buy.
Don’t be afraid to try your dreams and see if they work for you.
The Takeaway: Not every dream works out, especially when the dream becomes reality. It’s ok to have a safety net, and it’s okay to change your mind if your dream is different from what you imagined.
Step 4: Embrace the Setbacks
We now live in a house 10 minutes walk from the sea. The journey here wasn’t easy. We had some offers on houses rejected, even though they felt like our dream home. Other times our offer was accepted, but there were problems in the house. Each time an offer fell through, it felt like our dream was in tatters. I often wanted to walk away and stop trying.
How this step surprised me
I thought that if you’re chasing your dreams, it should be easy. Things should just fall into place for you. I didn’t expect disappointment and heartache to be part of the process.
Why it works
I’ve learned that setbacks and the difficult feelings that arise are all part of the journey. It’s best to embrace them and let them flow through you. After some time of healing, I found the dream would return, fresh and new, and we were ready to pursue it again.
The Takeaway: Disappointment and set-backs are part of the journey of following the dreams. Learn to accept them and let the difficult feelings flow through you.
The 4 Surprising Lessons I Learned from Chasing a Dream
We reached our dream of living beside the sea, and it’s wonderful to be able to walk on the beach whenever we want to. The journey to reach our dream surprised me. Here are the four key takeaways I learned from the process:
- Write down your dreams, and you’ll see more opportunities to pursue them.
- Hold your dreams lightly, and you can enjoy the journey of chasing them.
- It’s ok to have a safety net, and it’s okay to change your mind if your dream is different from what you imagined.
- Set-backs are part of the process — embrace them as such.
Good luck in chasing your own dreams — I’d love to hear your results, too.