Do you follow your dreams?

This week my daughter goes to university to start a Creative Writing course. I am filled with several emotions, but I have to admit one of the dominant emotions I am experiencing is envy. I am envious of the fact that she is fulfilling a life long ambition, that she has always known that this is where she would end up and she has made it happen. 

You see when she was 4 years old she came home from school and announced she was going to be an “author”. They had been reading a book and the teacher had gone through all the keywords around books for her age group and she had discovered that an author is the person who writes the story. That was it. She was going to be an author. Never once has she deviated from this belief. Her first word was book (well, technically it was “ook” but she was pointing to the book that was just out of reach!) and it has been her one passion ever since.

During lockdown she wrote a Dr Who fan fiction which has to date been read by almost 50k people, all around the world. She has mentored other writers online and she is now going out into the world to hone her craft, and learn all about the publishing industry.

Any dream will do…

When I was younger I had many dreams; writing, singing and teaching. I was never as focused as my daughter. Despite this I have managed to fulfil all of them to one degree or another. 

I initially went to college to do performing arts, after years of school productions and amateur dramatics. Then when I decided a career in singing wasn’t for me, I still kept it up as a hobby. My husband and I met through singing and did a few gigs together before we had children. I even sang at the London Palladium, which was an absolute dream come true.

 No regrets?

I am grateful though that I was brave enough to follow my heart and do what made me happy at the time. By the time I left teaching, I wasn’t enjoying it any more. It wasn’t the teaching, but the system that was broken. I was glad I had ideas about other things I could do instead, things which would make me just as happy as teaching, other dreams to follow. 

Many people I speak to have been stuck in jobs they hate since they left school, either because they don’t know what their dream is, or because they aren’t brave enough to take that step. It makes me sad to hear people talking about paths they could have taken but they weren’t brave enough. Dreams they could have followed. 

I only have one regret when it comes to following my dreams and that is the fact that at the end the first year of my teaching degree, a friend of mine (who played Sunday league football with one of the band), told me that The Beautiful South were auditioning for a new female vocalist and he had got me an audition for that weekend. It was a dream come true, they were one of my favourite bands (still are) and although I will never know whether my voice was right for them, or even if it was good enough, I wish I had been brave enough to try.

 I decided that I was enjoying my teacher training and that I didn’t want to throw away that first year. In reality I was scared. Scared that they would laugh at me. Scared of the huge changes it would mean to my life if I did get in. I wish I had been brave enough to find out though.

Is there something you have always dreamed of doing but you haven’t been brave enough to take that first step? 

Remember the Mark Twain quote:

“We regret the things we don’t do more than the things we do.”

Here are my top 5 reasons why it is important to follow your dreams:

1. It will make you happy!

2. To prove them wrong. The naysayers, the voices in your head… whoever it is telling you you can’t do it!

3. You only live once.

4. They make life worth living.

5. To earn a living – you are more likely to do something well if you enjoy it.

What can you do today to move you closer to your dreams?

Find out more:

The Benefits of Singing

Taking a leap

How to follow your dreams