Why Dreams Die and How to Revive a Dead Dream. For the Introspective Introvert.

Have you ever carried a dream for so long that it stopped feeling exciting and started feeling heavy?

Maybe you told people about it.

Maybe you planned it in your head for months or even years.

Maybe you still want it, but every time you think about starting, you feel pressure instead of peace.

In this episode, I’m talking about how to revive a dead dream and how to know if the dream is still yours to pursue.

Sometimes dreams do not die because we forgot about them.

Sometimes they die because the weight of our own expectations becomes too much to carry.

The longer we wait, the more pressure we feel to make the dream impressive, polished, and successful right away.

And that pressure can make it even harder to begin.

In this episode, I share a simple way to think about the dreams you have been carrying.

Sometimes the way to wake up a dead dream is to stop talking about it and finally do the smallest version of it.

So if there is something in your heart that has felt too heavy to start, I hope this episode encourages you to pause, pay attention, and take one tiny step.

Maybe your dead dream is not really dead.

Maybe it just needs room to breathe again.

Thanks for being here! If you'd like to support the show, please visit buymeacoffee.com/remiroy to give a one-time or monthly gift. 

And if you can’t give financially right now? A rating, a review, or simply sharing the show with a friend goes such a long way.

Thank you for being here. I see you. I appreciate you.

Transcript

TDIP S4E15

00:00:00 Remi Osi: Dreams can feel light and exciting in the beginning. We're passionate. We're excited to go after it. But the longer we carry them without acting on them, the heavier they can become. And sometimes the dream doesn't die because we forgot about it. Sometimes it dies under the weight of our own expectations. So today I want to talk about how to revive a dead dream. If you have been carrying a dream around and somehow it has died in your hands because you couldn't figure out how to get started, how to give life to it, how to step up. I know this will help you. Let's get into it.

00:00:48 Remi Osi: All right. So I want to share something from an email I read from someone I follow online. He was talking about dreams and essentially why dreams die. He said he was scrolling on LinkedIn and came across posts where people were announcing their dream jobs, new projects, or finally going after the thing they wanted to do. And he thought, I could have sworn I've seen some of these people post about different rooms at different times. I get that one hundred percent. Maybe someone who once was passionate about healthcare is now passionate about software, or someone who wanted to do something in the events business is not passionate about something completely different. And he wondered what happened to those dreams. Do they just disappear? And then he said something really profound. And that is the fact that dreams have expiration dates. And I thought about that. Dreams have expiration dates. He said dreams don't die because of neglect because, oh, you have this dream, but you never paid attention to it. You know, because people think, oh, you just forgot about the dream. You neglected the dream. That's why you never went for it. That's why you never pursued it. But no, for him, he believes dreams don't die from neglect. They die from weight. The weight of expectations. Because every day that passes that you don't act on your dream, it becomes heavier to carry around because it was exciting before. Now it feels weighty and heavy, especially when you see other people going after their dreams doing their thing. You feel like, I should do this, I have to do this. I should do it. most especially if you've talked about it to other people. You've mentioned it, you've talked about it, you know, you've created this, um, picture of what it will look like. Now you feel like you should do it and then it becomes heavy. It becomes uncomfortable. The more you don't, the more you procrastinate, the more you don't find the courage and the confidence to go after it. And after a while, it feels like you're failing at it. Even though you haven't started. It becomes a pressure trap for you. Now, along with the weight of dreams, there is also the pressure of doing that dream well, because if you've talked about a dream for so long, by the time you want to present it, you want to make sure it is the best possible thing that you're presenting to people because you've been talking about it for two years or three years or five years. You're not going to just want to throw something together and throw it out there. Now you have this expectation that people expect more from you. Now you have this perfectionist streak. But if you mentioned it today and you're like, hey, I want to do this, and then you put it out there and it's not perfect. It feels like people will be more accepting of that, right? You didn't spend years talking about it before you finally did it. You got an idea, you acted on it and you put it out there. People are more forgiving because you're like, oh yeah, you're working on something, you're tweaking it. Right? But if you've talked about it for so long and then you come up with something really subpar, you are going to feel like you failed. I haven't thought about this in that way before, but I think it's true. He gave this example. If you quit your job next month to freelance, everyone understand that there's going to be a ramp up period, right? But if you quit after five years of planning, you know, actively planning. People wonder why you're not hitting your goals in your first month because you've talked about it for so long, you've talked it up and now they wonder. And then you also feel that way about your dream. Why am I not doing. Why is it not working right out of the gate? And that can be overwhelming. This is why so many dreams become impossible to start. Because the gap between your current skill level and what everyone expects grows wider every month that you wait. This is such a big thought. The wait problem creates another issue for you, It becomes difficult to understand what dreams are actually worth pursuing and which ones are not. He said many of his dreams have expired because they were never really his to begin with. There were things he thought he should want because he saw other people achieving them. And that happens to us a lot. You look around on social media and you see somebody doing a business, you know, like a service business or like a coaching business, and you feel like, yeah, I should do that. I can do that. I have what it takes to do that, right? Or something. Other people are doing because it just sounded good to everyone you told. But after a while, they felt exhausted when you sat down and thought about the practice of actually achieving those goals. It started to feel more like a work you didn't really want to do. It felt exhausting, and that's another big one. So the question is, do you actually want to do the work? When you've talked about a dream for so long, you know you have ideas of what it will look like, what it would feel like, maybe because you saw other people doing it, Do you really want that? And he said he has a test now that he uses to kind of fill out this particular issue. When I imagine doing the work, not having done it, but actually doing the work, how does it make me feel? So you think about, I want to be a coach, you know, I want to coach people or I want to start a business, maybe like a freelance business or whatever. Think about it. Don't imagine that you have, uh, clients and it's going well. Imagine that you're sitting up every day waking up, doing the work, you know, going to bed, thinking about the work, maybe staying up late doing the work. How does that make you feel? I think sometimes we over romanticize what it takes to actually pursue a dream? We think about the end result. We think about what it looks like at the end, when it's working, when it's great, but you cannot think about your dreams that way. You have to think about what it takes every single day to do them because that is where the real life is. What will you be required to do when you wake up today, tomorrow, the next day, the next five years, the next ten years? You have to keep doing it for that end result that you're excited about to be possible. So are you going to do it? Are you ready to do it? Are you willing to to do it? Are you willing to endure the pain and the hardship, the challenges, and the time required to do it? So he gives this example. Say you have a dream to, you know, write a newsletter. Sit down, open your laptop and get ready to write your first newsletter. Does your mind start coming alive with ideas or do you immediately think of everything else you should be doing instead? Or picture yourself on a sales call explaining how your new consulting services work to like a prospective customer or something. Does that conversation give you energy, or does the thought make you want to run and hide somewhere? If that work excites you, then maybe you have to save that dream and go after it. Go ahead, save that dream. Go after it. But if it feels like a miserable choice you've been avoiding, there you go. You might be chasing someone else's dream. I think this is a really good stuff, because it makes you really slow down and think about the things we say we want. Do we really want? How do we want them? Why do we want them? And do we know what we are asking for? Sometimes you have to kill the dream first, he said. If thinking about the work excites you, but the dream feels impossible for you to start. Sometimes the only way to save that dream is to kill it first. Stop talking about it. Stop planning. Stop carrying it around. Instead, get curious about what a much smaller version of it might actually look like. Instead of thinking about a big travel blog with hundreds of posts, merge and sponsorships, how about just one post about a place you've been? Don't imagine like the AI consulting business with processes and systems and employees and VA's just help one person, help one friend automate one part of their business. I think that's really good advice. Scale it all the way down. If you can do it for that one person. If you can do that one blog post, that one, um, newsletter, whatever it is, and you are excited about it and you want to keep going, then you have your answer. The bottom line is this. Dreams have expiration dates, and I solely believe that. not because You cannot pursue your dreams at any age, not because you cannot wake up now and have a new dream. it's because when you're carrying it around for so long. The possibilities that you will do it and you will do it with renewed energy. begins to fade over time. Which is why when you have a dream, especially if it's something you believe God is calling you to do, get on it. Don't waste time. He says the cause of death isn't usually neglect, it's suffocation under the weight of your own expectations. So essentially, the way I look at it is this have you been carrying around a dream that you've been talking about? You've been saying you want to do it. You've told everyone who would listen, but you haven't done it. What does that do to you? It puts you under pressure. It feels heavy. It feels weighty. So maybe what you can do right now is stop talking about that dream. Stop planning. Stop talking to everyone who will listen. Stop making post about it. Just one single thing. One small thing, one simple thing. Think of it as an MVP, a minimum viable product. What is the smallest version of that thing that you can do now and just do it. Don't overthink it. Don't over plan it. Just do it. And that's number one, right? What is the smallest version of it? Go to that. Number two. Ask yourself for the next ten years would feel like doing this particular thing, really evaluating if you find yourself doing this thing for the next five or ten years, what does that feel like? Are you excited? Are you zealous about it? Are you passionate? Are you ready to go? Or are you avoiding it? That might be the answer you've been looking for. So take one tiny step today. If you want to revive a dream that has been dead, maybe you want to start a school. Maybe you want to start a podcast, a business. You want to travel the world. Whatever it is, stop thinking, planning, and talking about it. Just take one tiny step today. It's funny how when you talk about something, and I think there's research around this actually, you actually get a dopamine hit from talking about it, especially if it's something, um, it was like a picture you're painting for someone. It's exciting. There's a sort of sense of satisfaction from talking about it that takes it with a drive to actually go do it. So you don't want to be that person. You want to revive that dream. Stop talking. Stop planning. Go do the smallest version of that dream, and then think about what it looks like for the next ten years. And if you see that, you're really into it. So I want to encourage you. Wake that dream up. Do it, pursue it. Don't be afraid. Don't overthink. I love this quote by said God, and he says, be bold. Don't be afraid of being wrong. But it pays to be interesting. Do the thing. Be bold. Don't be afraid of getting things wrong. Find interesting in ways to pursue your dream. All right. I'm curious. Is there something you want to do? Is there a dream in your heart that you've been carrying around for so long? And it's becoming heavier and heavier and heavier with time? I would love to chat with you about it, because the truth is, you have what it takes to go do it, even if it's just a small version of it. You can start to give that dream life and see where it takes you. I would love to chat with you. Send me an email at The Driven introvert at qpac dot com. I am excited about going after dreams. This is my passion because there's a reason why you've been given that dream. There's a reason why your heart calls to it. There's a reason why you're excited about it and you talk about it. Don't let that be buried under years and years of inaction and inertia. Move. Take that first step and bring your dream to life. Thanks so much for listening to this one, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.