LEARNING TO DREAM AGAIN

Why did life seem so rich and colorful when we were kids? It certainly wasn’t an easy time, but it was filled with a sense of hope and possibility. We didn’t have any doubt that we would get what we wanted! Oh, the dreams we had! They kept us company, they kept us warm, and they elevated us to new heights in our lives. You hadn’t yet learned to filter your desires through a committee of fear, doubt, and “be reasonable.” You didn’t sit there and ask, “Is this realistic?” You asked, “How amazing is this going to be?” That’s a completely different operating system.

There was no if, there was only when. “When I’m rich, when I’m famous, when I make my first million, and write my first best seller…” I can’t remember a single friend aspiring to be the manager of Walmart. No, we were captains of industry, masters of our fate, and of course, leaders in our field.
Maybe the popular narrative is to say that we have gotten ‘realistic.’ We’ve come down to earth and become practical human beings. I gotta tell you, I couldn’t think of a worse fate.
Somewhere along the way, we got trained out of dreaming. Not maliciously—just consistently. A little disappointment here, a little criticism there, a few unmet expectations, and suddenly the mind goes, “Let’s dial this down so we don’t get hurt again.” And now, instead of dreaming in bold color, we think in grayscale. We don’t aim to win—we aim not to lose. We trade vision for security and call it maturity. That’s not growing up—it’s growing old.
But here’s the good news: that part of you didn’t die. It went into hiding. The dreamer, the believer, the one who knew that life was going to work out—that’s still in there, waiting for the green light. The solution is not to become childish again, but to become childlike. To consciously choose the mindset you used to have unconsciously.
When I find clients unable to dream and scheme, unwilling to risk living in possibility, there is an exercise that I assign. Write down the dreams that you had as a child. I know they are outlandish, but write them down anyway. Now take each one and see yourself living it. I know you’re not going to fly to the moon anytime soon, but I want you to capture the freedom and the joy of living those thoughts and fantasies. Unlock your mind. Stop being reasonable. Be dangerous! Be outrageous! Give yourself permission to fully imagine and experience these dreams and notice how it feels.

Now think of the dreams you have and have had about your adult life. Fill your mind with those pictures and images and connect to the feelings of expecting and achieving what you want. Now your instrument is starting to wake up.
Deliberately reinstall expectation. Einstein had it right: you get what you expect. Not what you want, not what you deserve—what you expect. So begin expecting in your favor again. Not blindly, but intentionally. Pick the dream you want to invest in. Train your mind like you would a muscle: daily, deliberately, and with repetition. See yourself winning. See things working out. Let your nervous system get reacquainted with possibility. Most people are starving, not for success, but for permission to want it again.
Stop making disappointment mean something about you. As a kid, you could want something, not get it, cry for ten minutes, and then go right back to dreaming. Now? We don’t get something, and we turn it into an identity crisis. “Maybe I’m not that person.” Nonsense. You’re exactly that person—you just paused the game.
Life didn’t become less colorful. You just stopped using the full palette.
So here’s the move: pick the brush back up. Start painting in bold strokes again. Expect more. Want more. Imagine more. Not because you’re guaranteed to get everything, but because that’s the version of you that is fully alive and engaged.
And between us? No reasonable person ever changed the world. Be extraordinary. Dare to dream.
The world desperately needs more people who remember how to dream.