Fostering new behaviors. . .

Envision how your life could or would look if you paid more attention to it, rather than to the life of someone else. Might you change careers, go back to school, downsize your home, pick up a hobby that you have always secretly longed to do but for which you felt you had too little time? Dream big. Be daring with your thoughts. Dreaming doesn’t commit you to fulfilling the desired change yet, but it is the hook that can pull you into forward motion.

I have a friend who decided to take up ballroom dancing a few years ago. Her spouse wasn’t interested, but she decided to live out her dream anyway. Her shifting her focus to her own life actually improved their marriage. Another friend joined a fiction-writing group. She doubts she will ever publish one of her short stories, but she has gone on to take many classes and loves the connections she has made with the men and women who, like her, write for the love of it and then read to one another in weekly groups. It has given her life a structure that had been missing ever since she became an empty-nester. A third friend, a former flight attendant, decided to volunteer in the schools to work with children who were failing in reading. In the process, she discovered a new talent. She could motivate children to learn, so she organized an after-school reading program that has been a great success. I took a watercolor class two years ago and now have three of my paintings hanging in my kitchen.

What we envision can take many forms. There isn’t a right one or a wrong one. It can be a solitary pursuit or one that includes others. But if you know in your heart you need to move your focus off of someone else’s life, having no vision is the glue that holds you in a waiting pattern. We can’t become what we can’t clearly see in our mind’s eye. Don’t be embarrassed by your dreams. They are God given, I believe. I think God can read our hearts even when we don’t voice our thoughts. He is ushering to our minds what we have yet to say out loud.

Close your eyes if it helps, go to that favorite place in your mind, and see yourself at play, or maybe in a play, or working in a new job, or sitting in a classroom. Don’t let my suggestions limit you in any way. Let your desires drive your dream.  Begin Your Plan for Change Now.