Sunday 19 June 2016

Dreams and the Social Worker Part 2

Hi Dear Readers,

Today I want to talk about connecting with our dreams.  They could be personal or professional, easy to obtain or seemingly impossible to acquire.  I find dreams to be the core motivators in our lives because if you're not working towards something - anything, you might as well be frozen.

There are a lot of generic dreams out there that everyone is expected to have - travel around the world, keep moving up in your field and so on.  And as a Social Work just starting out I bought into a lot of goals that I thought I wanted.  But as time passed and I faced more challenges I realized what is most important to me.  I want to have supportive people around me and I want to participate in a job where I feel like I am genuinely helping others without it taking too much of a toll on me.

The higher the dreams, the higher the costs but it can be worth it.  If your dream is deeply embedded in your soul and you feel a calling to pursue it then I wouldn't let anything get in your way of achieving it.  But if you have other significant obligations they should be considered first.  You don't want one area of your life to be going great while another is neglected.  The key is to try and achieve balance while chasing your dreams.

Personally, there is a dream I have that is going to take several years to accomplish.  Knowing that, I do feel a pang of disappointment at having to wait for it but I also know that I will truly appreciate the sacrifice it took to achieve it.  Since it's a big goal there are a lot of smaller steps involved but after carefully mapping it out I feel like I've got a good plan.

Not many people know about my dream, just a couple friends and my family.  However, I want it to stay that way because it's not a traditional goal and I doubt that those who don't know me very well would truly understand why I am pursing it.

Overall, I know it can be hard when we are caught up with our lives to dream.  Many goals we have seem too far away or impossible.  And it's true, there are some dreams that we have that we'll likely never accomplish.  But there are also reasonable goals we can achieve if we only set our mind to it and not let others or our own negative self-talk dissuade us.  We often put ourselves last, being in a helping profession and I know I am guilty of letting years pass without never really moving forward on my dreams.  Yet, I am finally answering the call and I hope that some day dear reader, you too will grab hold to a long neglected dream.

As Always,

Patti