When Your Dreams Are On Hold
We all have a pile of broken dreams. This is my closet of all the things I’ll get to someday; that I haven’t even started.
Sometimes you have to put your dreams on hold. Maybe you have a baby, move, get injured, or suffer a loss of some kind.
Or maybe you just know it’s not the right time to pursue a particular dream because of other, more important, priorities in your life.
What do you do when your dreams are on hold?
Recognize Dreams Change
When I was little, I thought I could do anything. I still do, in some ways, but in a more harnessed, realist fashion because of life really giving me no other choice.
I used to want to be a teacher. In high school, I desired to be more in the business world. In college, I took a plethora of business classes (accounting, marketing, economics, etc.) but it wasn’t until my senior year that I decided to work in Human Resources.
Then I decided to work as a campus missionary instead. 🤷🏼♀️
I’m not the same person I was in elementary school and, likewise, it’s OK if my dreams are not the same.
Changing dreams doesn’t mean you’re giving up. It means you’re changing. Click To TweetRecognize Dreams Take Time
Dreams don’t happen overnight.
The fastest softball pitch is never the first throw. The game scoring touchdown is never the first attempt. Winning the World Cup is never done without many, many two-a-days.
While the fact that Kylian Mbappe is incredibly talented should not be ignored, getting to this level of talent — leading your team to win the World Cup at the age of 19 😳 — doesn’t happen easily. It doesn’t happen without a few failures along the way.
If you’re not failing, you’re probably not trying.
If you have a dream on hold that has never made it farther than your closet, don’t worry about failing and start with step one: a YouTube tutorial, an online class, or a friend showing you how.
The Power In Pauses?
All of us have been put on hold during customer service calls that make us want to go all ‘Office Space’ on our phone. None of us are immune to pauses.
I had to put my life — my job, my engagement, my graduate degree, even my independence — on hold for an entire year of my life after a car accident.
This was the day I was supposed to walking down the aisle but instead was in my fifth month of therapy across the country from my fiancé.
The hardest part of recovery was not the physical battle to get back to where I was once was, but the uncertainty of not knowing when it would happen; on if it would.
“There is great power in pauses. Whether they’re chosen by you or hoisted upon you.”
-Jen Fulwiler, ‘One Beautiful Dream’
That year, as I saw them slowly unfolding, at a much different pace than I would’ve chosen, I had to learn how to deal with the pause.
It’s similar to how a stay-at-home parent dreams of going back to work someday. Or a working person dreams of retiring. Or a single person dreams of the married life that they know they are called to.
I learned the necessity of accepting the things that are out of your control, however frustrating they may be, and working with what is when dreams are on hold.
The Beauty In Pauses
While I learned to deal with the pause, I wish I had learned to appreciate it more — the added time at home with my parents, a slower pace of life that allowed more free time, seeing my fiancé show his faithful love with every flight to see me.
Instead, I worked my butt off on the little I could control to get back to my life as fast as I could. Instead, I felt trapped in my middle school life and, at times, acted like a middle schooler to my parents. Instead, I felt sorry for myself for all I had lost.
I failed to fully embrace and appreciate my pause.
If your dreams are on hold, continue to take steps to make them happen without missing the beauty of the pause.
Recognize the power in, the reason for, your pause…the baby giggles, the paying job, the chance to fly by the seat of your pants, etc.
Maybe someday I’ll learn to play the guitar and sew, but today these beautiful ladies win.
When have your dreams been on hold? How did you handle the pause?
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Well said Ash! I have found it difficult to have the perspective to appreciate the pause in my own power, but when I ask God to help me to accept and trust In His reasons for the pause or trial, my perspective shifts and I am then able to see the blessings more clearly.
Exactly. It just always seems to take time to get there, at least in my case. After you hit play again and are able to look back a bit, it always seems to make more sense.