Is now the right time? When you want something new but it all feels too much… date it!

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Dear Reader,

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I read a great book about 5 years ago called, “Creating the Impossible” (highly recommend it ) by Michael Neill, a brilliant coach with a deeply grounded faith in the natural wisdom, generosity and exquisite timing of the universe.

Creating the impossible? Yes!! The delicious aliveness that comes with honouring the insistant call to expand and rise, live a wild and glorious life. Never settle.

The creative powers of the universe will never be fully engaged by a commitment to compromise. I have an increasing file of evidence that this is true!

I was all in – Lead the Way MacDuff!!

So I was surprised and challenged when one of the points he made in the book was: to date your impossible project rather than marry it right away.

The principle has helped me numerous times since, so I wanted to share this piece of juicy wisdom with you.

Why? Because you might feel like 3 other women I’ve spoken to this week who :

1) Have a big dream but doubt that now is the right time to focus on it because they’re exhausted, over sollicited, over stretched and have over full plates – special needs children, parental care and executive positions, not to mention partners and the odd yoga class they’d like to make it to every now and again.

2) Dived head first with unbridled optimism and enthusiasm into their dream jobs, and end up 3 years later burnt out and spat out by a toxic work environment

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So here’s where the ‘date your dream’ metaphor comes in useful.

1) “I DON’T HAVE TIIIIIIIME or ENERGYYYYYYY” You cry. I believe you. “I CAAAAAAAN’T“ you say. “Sure it’s exciting but it’s a dumb idea. It’s going to take so much time and energy and the thought of it with everything else just isn’t reasonable and I’ll wait till I’m retired or the kids are grown up, or my parents are in care.”

Honey, NO ADULT has random gaps in their life waiting for their dream to neatly fill them. No one. Our lives are FULL.

AND. ANNNNNNND… there are some moments that are harder and more intense than others that draw on all our energy and attention, stretch us in too many directions – or are just plain crises - because that’s also the way life rolls. Sometimes you simply have to focus on what’s needed now.

In these moments you can still DATE YOUR DREAM IDEA. You don’t have to marry it. But don’t ditch it completely. Let it support you.

Take it on a breakfast date or a short walk in the forest. Hold hands with it. Sit outside and have a cup of coffee with it. Make some space for it to breathe and thrive, and you can grow your relationship with it slowly.

Besides, if it was your lover you’d find ways to let it be in your life no matter what! ;-) Fall in love with it and let it revive you, nourish you and generate the energy and power you need to deal with everything else.

One last thing: If overwhelm and overload are familiar states for extended months on end with no respite, that’s definitely not a sign to abandon your dream. That’s a sign you need to have different conversations about boundaries and work load, probably face some fears about rejection not being indispensible. (We’ll talk about that another time, shall we?)

2) The Dream Job ticks all of your boxes? Not so fast!! Date it!!! How? Become the interviewer. Review and expand your ‘ideal’ criteria. Find out about your metaphorical ‘inlaws.’ Who else is in the organisation? What are they saying about it? Tune more deeply into your wild animal intuition and feel into the subtle cues that you can always pick up if you’re not intent on pleasing and making sure you’re accepted.

Now is always the right time to create what you really want. Be that a position or bringing a vision to life.

Your life is now.

Rest assured that the divine timing of life means that shit will always happen and things will always get in the way. And you will always have too much to do.

Commitment and taking action don’t always have to be big leaps. Commitment means taking regular smalls steps towards what you want. You can respect your current energetic limits – and the stage of your life – and still create the vision.

If you date it.

Boldness might have action, power and magic in it. But that doesn’t require you to take super human actions ALL the time. Mostly you just have to give it some love and connection.

Don’t drop the vision. Don’t drop the dream. Don’t extinguish your longing.

Date it!

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With love,

Angela

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Oh and two more things!

1. My creative resilience podcast is coming soon!
2. Have a vision, a big idea, a dream, a LONGING you want to breathe life into and see who you become in the process? Wild Spirit Leadership Adventure is starting end July. For game changing, unstoppable women leaders who are transforming leadership.