Season 6 Episode 98
Listen to this episode to get starting planning your dreams and visions for the new year.
Show Notes:
Episode Summary:
When was the last time you dreamed? In today’s episode we are going to take a look at dreaming.
Dreaming is probably something you think of that happens when you’re sleeping, but we have a different context here. We’re talking about dreams for your life.
When was the last time you actually spent time dreaming about what you want in your life and how you want your life to play out?
Do you have a clear and compelling vision for your life?
If your dreams could use clarifying, stay tuned. We’re going to help you create dreams and a vision for your future life that will propel you forward and elevate your life in 2025.
This episode is part of a four part workshop, Elevate Your Life 2025, which we are presenting on the podcast. You can download a free workbook to go along with this series here.
In this episode:
These show notes are not a word-for-word transcript of the show. In the podcast discussion, we often talk back and forth and give stories and examples. For the best experience, we always recommend that you listen to the podcast.
Introduction:
Last week on the podcast we discussed harvesting the best of 2024 and finding ways to start the new year with strength. We talked about understanding how you want to feel and making a wins list. We also included several additional exercises in our free workbook, Elevate Your Life 2025. If you haven’t listened to that episode, you might want to go back and listen to episode 97. It is the first of our Elevate Your Life 2025 series.
If you don’t have the workbook yet, you can grab it here. We have included all the activities we’ve talked about and additional ones. We have also linked to some great videos and other resources that we love and that can help you in designing your best life.
This week we are going to take a look at dreaming.
When was the last time you actually spent time dreaming about what you want in your life and how you want your life to play out?
We’ve said it many times on this podcast, you don’t have to settle for whatever life gives you, you can choose what you want to have in your life. That’s where dreaming comes in. Dreams get us excited about our lives.
Michele: I recently listened to an interview with actress Keke Palmer. We’ve mentioned her before, she starred in one of my favorite movies, Akeelah and the Bee when she was 12. She is now a prominent actress and TV host.
What impressed me in this interview is the way Keke talked about designing and creating her own life. She came from very humble beginnings, and talked about how she became the breadwinner in her family as a child. She said that she had never felt that she was burdened by this, she embraced it and actually sought it. She realized at age ten that she had a lot of power and she decided to own it.
She dealt with everyone’s negativity in that they thought it was crazy for a poor black child to think that she could become a movie star. She held on to her dreams. She said that when she started to become successful as a child, people thought that she had been lucky, and that she had peaked. It made her angry because she was planning it and working hard towards her dream.
In a time when many actors looked towards winning an Oscar as achieving their dream, she said, “ I never wanted to be Mickey Mouse. I wanted to be Walt Disney.” She is now producing and running her own empire.
She knew it when she was a child. She had the vision, that dream of what could be and she stuck to it. That’s the power of having dreams and vision for your life.
Paula: Here is another celebrity example. In 2010 Demi Lovato tweeted out to the world that she had a dream that she would sing the national anthem at the Superbowl. Ten years later she did exactly that, she sang the national anthem at Superbowl 54. She put her dream out into the world, and then she took lots of steps to make it happen.
Sometimes it is just recognizing that dream and saying it that makes everything happen.
How does dreaming fit into your life plan?
Is all of this dreaming just that, a pile of dreams that don’t end up amounting to anything?
It could be if you don’t act on those dreams.
Here is our example. Think of a triangle with the wide part at the bottom. Divide it into four pieces. If you can imagine Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, that is a similar graphic. We have a graphic of this diagram in the workbook, so you can see it there.
At the bottom of the triangle sits Purpose. This connects to questions such as:
- What do I value?
- Who am I?
- What matters?
- What brings me joy?
- What gifts do I bring?
We talked about those things in the last episode, episode 97.
In the next level of the triangle is Dreams. This is visualizing.
- How do I want my life to be?
- What inspires me to create something in my life?
This is the topic we will address more fully in a minute.
The next level of the pyramid is Projects. This is where you take your dreams out of imagination and into reality. You put them into projects. We’ll talk more about that next week.
The last level of the pyramid is Schedule. This is where you find time for all of those projects. Busy people know that what gets scheduled gets done.
We like to put dreaming into context, because it is very easy for people to skip the dreaming part and just schedule the day-to-day work. That works if you want to get your day-to-day things done, but it can mean you easily lose sight of the big picture, your dreams. You lose sight of your personal goals and dreams and sometimes you even lose sight of yourself along the way.
Almost every teacher we know is really good at getting the day-to-day things done. It’s what makes our lives work. We get busy and along the way, and as a result, the big dreams often get lost.
We’ve got a lot of great activities for developing your dreams and visions in the workbook, as well as some great videos. Today we are going to share one of these activities, but we encourage you to spend a little time exploring the rest of the ideas in the workbook.
Here’s our activity for today: Explore your dreams. What do you want?
Consider the following areas of your life. What would you like to see happen in your life in any of these areas?
- My personal dream:
- My family dream:
- My health and well-being dream:
- My professional dream:
- My relationship dream:
- My fun dream:
- My adventure dream:
- My financial dream:
- Other dreams:
Let’s look at some personal examples.
Paula: I have a relationship dream that I am working on. I have a dream to spend ample time with all of my loved ones where I am being fully present. I don’t want to feel like I am rushing in or rushing back out, but to just sit and be with my people and be fully present with them. I do have a very full schedule. I will schedule 45 minutes to have coffee with a friend. I will rush in, and spend forty-five minutes and then rush out. At least I am scheduling these things in now, but my goal is actually taking the time to be with them and having ample time without having to stop in the middle of something. I’m making progress, but I am not always there yet.
Michele: As an example, one of my dreams is an adventure dream. I have six states left to visit, and I want to finish that list in the next year or two. I’ve actually been working on this dream for a while. It’s possible, but it takes planning. For example, I had never been to Alabama. I was looking at a map and realized that Alabama is just south of Tennessee. I have a daughter who lives in Nashville, so we made plans to visit her and then spend the weekend in Alabama. Now I am planning on how I can visit Delaware, Alaska, and the Northern Rocky Mountain states.
Which of your dreams could lead to a goal or project in the next year or two? Plan for it now!
Conclusion:
You can use your workbook to find several more activities to help you define your dream. We have an activity called Wake up Your Dreams to remember what you loved as an eight-year old child, which can bring about passions you forgot you have.
We also have a visioning exercise where you describe your perfect life. We also included one of our favorite visioning tools, My Three Words, where you create here words that will guide you I and remind you of how you want to be in your life.
Of course we also included videos and resources you can watch and listen to help you refine your dreams.
Recap:
Dreaming about the kind of life you want to live isn’t just a way to waste time and escape reality. It is a way to define what you want for your life and to create a clear and compelling vision that can move you forward to the life of your dreams.
Quote:
“You don’t have to settle for whatever life gives you, you can choose what you want to have in your life.”
Inspired Together Teachers
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Elevate Your Life 2025 Workbook
Related Episodes/Blog Posts:
Episode 97 Start the New Year from a Place of Strength
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More About Inspired Together Teachers:
Are you a teacher struggling to balance your best work with your best life?
If you are dedicated and caring but often overwhelmed and exhausted, join us at Inspired Together Teachers. We’ll give you inspiration, strategies and tips that help you navigate life’s challenges as a stronger, more confident, and more joy filled person, both in and out of the classroom.
Inspired Together Teachers will give you practical tools to experience more of what matters most in your life.
Co-hosts Paula Schmidt and Michele Vosberg are award winning educators with the experience and skills to help teachers thrive in life and work. They’ve taught at all levels, worked with thousands of teachers, and conducted workshops around the world. They are also the authors of the #1 best-selling book The Inspired Teachers Journal: A Weekly Guide to Becoming Your Best Self.
Paula and Michele would love to have you to join them on their quest to lived inspired lives.
