Pushing Past the Clouds to the Dreams

There's been a lot of talk around me lately about following dreams, living dreams, and making dreams come true.

I'm not talking in the romantic fairy tale sense.  But about really pushing through with your goals and making things happen.

Earlier this week, I was listening to a teleconference call about this very subject.  The speaker, Marcia Wieder, spoke about living with intention and purpose.  She encouraged us to do what we love, value our gifts, charge what we're worth, talk about our dreams out loud to as many people as possible, and repeat these steps often.

I've been pondering this for the past couple of days.

I had to kind of take a step back, and realized that I'm just all over the place.  I'm conflicted with pursuing my passions and with the need to make a living for the purposes of surviving.

Being unemployed has really given me time to think a lot about what kind of nonprofit I'd like to open up one day.  But, I'm finding that it is difficult for me to follow through on it because I feel like it everything costs money.  Money that I don't have.

But I'm going to tell you all my dreams anyway.

I dream of opening up a skill-share studio and wellness center, but it will cost money to rent or lease a space, plus utilities, marketing, etc.

I dream of becoming a sex educator, but I need money up-front to pay for a certification course.

I dream to combine my passions, because why the hell can't I?  I can lead the sexual health portion of the wellness center, and be contracted to go out and teach sessions.  Eventually, I would want to open up the center to a youth program where the youth get to work on their creative endeavors as well as share them with others.

The only dream I've had that doesn't cost money is to work on a sex ed web-comic (but with an actual story and snippets of educational information).  But, I keep holding myself back on this one because I feel like I need to figure out how I want the comic to look.

Aside from the money, I know I have a lot of fears.  There were a lot of "but's" in those statements above.  Though, I do feel like it's mainly the money.

I fear the usual things - failure, making tons of mistakes.  But then I'm also nervous about not being "expert" enough in whatever I'm doing.  Though, clearly no one is an expert when they begin any endeavor.

I fear that I'm just a nobody.  No one knows who I am, so there isn't a name or reputation to back me up.  However, I know that while relationships with the community are important, I am a master at building relationships.  More importantly, people want to be satisfied by their experience, and practitioners and teachers want to feel like they have a stake in their space.

I fear doing it all alone.  I feel like I need to have a team behind me - almost like if others are behind me then I've been given an "ok."  I do wish that I could have other folks who would be willing to invest in a space with me.  But this is MY dream, one which will hopefully help others' dreams.  But it starts at MINE. 

So, there.  I've laid it out.

I've been working on a business plan, and I'm hoping to attend some workshops on how to keep building my plan.  While it's been really difficult to save money, I want to look into getting a business loan.  I'm attending several networking events, and I plan on talking about my ideas and dreams as well as what I love to do.

I don't want to just let these ideas fall by the wayside.  It might not happen tomorrow.  I but I will make it happen.  I know it.

All images are from workisnotajob.com
Please check them out for your daily inspiration.