Don’t live your dream – live life
Agree? Maybe you don’t agree with this statement and it is probably the first time you heard a coach saying it is better NOT to live your dream. In this text Mindfulnesscoach Jonas Faremo gives a brief introduction on how our pattern of trying to live our dream take us further away from a dream-life. He also gives us eight questions to reveal some of these patterns and clues about how to find a different approach.
It is controversial as a coach to say; don’t follow your dream. That’s the coach’s job isn’t it, helping people to live their dream? Yes, but if you lived life awake you have most likely picked up the pattern that reaching a goal or becoming successful don’t make people happy. And when we have a dream, and aims for it, it becomes a goal. On the contrary, we don’t hesitate sacrificing our very needs here and now, where life is, for this future dream/goal of ours (or someone else’s goal…). And sometimes we sacrifice the now in many, many years chasing a dream or reaching a goal. Is that really a dream-life?
When I first started traditional coaching, I helped people to reach goals. But when the target was reached, there was never contentment for more then a very short moment. All that time of effort for seconds of pleasure! The same was true in my own life. The strive for a dream always led to the same place I started; a new dream arising and a new chase beginning. We where all prisoners of our own dreams, and life were hijacked by an illusion of the future. Recognize this?
“Is it possible to be happy without any specific reason?”
The questions I set out to find answers to some years ago what; is there a way of creating results more effortlessly? Do I have to create self-pressure and stress in order to get to that dream, sacrificing myself on the way? Is it possible to be happy without any specific reason??? I wanted to live life more fully and had been struggling and stressing and pushing and pressing which led to outer results but also to inner – I was exhausted and never content for more then seconds. I didn’t allow myself to relax and enjoy life. And I found myself worrying a lot about not getting what I dreamed about. The answers I found that gave the most satisfactory answers to the above questions came from the east – the tradition of yoga, meditation, mindfulness, zen and so on. With the eastern approach I not only got hope that it was possible to perform more effortlessly and even to be content and happy without having to perform, I also discovered many ways of HOW to do that.
Now, I am not saying it is wrong to follow dreams or having dreams, and you most likely don’t have the same issues I had. But I am pretty sore all of us to some degree are creating unnecessary pressure, stress and discontentment while chasing our dreams. Here are some questions that can help reveal some of these patterns.
- Do I have a habit of sacrificing myself now for accomplishing things for a future purpose?
- Do I care so much about other people’s approval that I put pressure on myself to perform according to their expectations?
- When I look back at my life, does it seem like I have to do specific things in order to be happy?
- When I look back at my life, does it seem like I need to reach a goal or meet my/others expectations in order to be content?
- When do I practise being content and happy regularly and when do I practice getting somewhere?
- In which way am I creative in a) a state of gratitude or b) a state of worry?
- What am I taking for granted in my life on planet earth right now?
- What can I be grateful for right now?
If you answered yes to any of the first four questions there is potential for less suffering and effortless living. How to do that? In the answers on to the questions 5-8 maybe you gave yourself some clues about first steps to take.
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