When Dreams become Goals

"Dream Big!" ~Unknown

"A Dream is a wish your heart makes." ~Cinderella

"Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real." ~Tupac Shakur

Everyone has heard at least one quote in their life about dreams. About what they mean or what they are or who they're for.

But I feel like authors, artists, and anyone in the creative-field knows that at some point we have to take those dreams and turn them into goals. We have to stop wishing and hoping and thinking and praying... (Sorry. Dusty Springfield just hits right sometimes.)

Anyways, there comes a time in every creative person's life where we have to say "Eff it!" and shift our mindset. Those dreams of publishing our work, selling our art, outgrow the box we've put them in. At some point we feel stifled by dreaming and break down the barrier.

Suddenly, that wall that we all erect--the one that has dreams on one side, elusive; and goals on this side--fades to a mist. Think Sarah J Maas ACOTAR type of wall. or Suzanne Collins Hunger Games barrier. It's there. You feel the pulses emanating from it. It draws you close even as it pushes you away.

That moment for me came around this time in 2021.

Two years ago, I looked at my husband and sheepishly told him this dream I'd had since I was a little girl. I told him how I had sat in the closet in the spare room across from the kitchen in my childhood home as that's where our family's ancient Mac desktop was. **Y'all this was pre laptops!**

I sat there in a kitchen chair and wrote out "Duke and his Duchess." It was awful. Truly terrible. But it ignited something in me that I had buried for years. Literal decades.

He looked at me and told me to go for it.

Two years later I have six books out for sale on Amazon. I'm an indie published author. I have accomplished my dream of writing a book. That turned into a dream of writing an entire series.

It wasn't until this week when I looked back and realized I had all these dreams pertaining to writing. Dreams I've made into goals. Accomplishments.

So here and now I'm listing out my new round of dreams-turned-goals.

• Write another series

• Audiobooks! I want my books accessible for as many people as possible. Visual limitations, reading comprehension limitations, access to written works or even electronic options (not everyone can get eBooks). I want the barriers in accessibility gone!

• Have someone I don't know find my work and post about it positively.

• Help other authors in their creating-editing-publishing journey.