Do you ever lay in bed at night in those minutes before drifting off to sleep and think about your dreams for your life that you would like to accomplish some day?  I’m talking about the “I envision myself being this or doing this” type of thoughts, the kind that are so far off from where you are right now that you wonder if you even dare to dream them.  I believe that God puts those dreams in our hearts.  Sometimes we can carry them around in our adult lives, pushed so far down into the inner recesses of our soul that they are almost…but not quite…gone.

This July, my husband and I will have been running our business for ten years.  We work more hours than I really want to admit; I guess that is part of who we are even though I would like to be more balanced.  The business part of my life pays the bills but it isn’t who I am.  In my dreams, I can someday earn my living by writing, though I have no clue what that would look like.

I have been reading a book this week that has challenged my paradigm of how to pursue a dream.  The book is called Church Boy to Millionaire by Doug Wood and I have tried to link this to his website.  I went to an event last night and heard Doug and his wife Thea speak.  They asked us, the audience, what our dream was, the intersection of what we love doing and what we feel we are good at.  I thought that is easy, I want to finish my book and publish it.  I want to someday make my living as a writer.  I want to use my writing as a vehicle to help people move towards becoming a better version of themselves.

What completely unsettled me at the event was the challenge to imagine who we might be in the future and then take action now to move that dream into reality.  I was somewhat complacent as I went to the event as I felt I was indeed taking steps to move toward achieving my dream.  I realized last night though that I have been comfortable in writing a blog without doing anything more than push “publish” on my Word Press button.  I have been thinking for the last 4 1/2 years that God will just send who He wants to read the blog; somehow the people meant to read it will be divinely directed to it.

I was struck last night that maybe that’s just an excuse on my part because I am actually too afraid to “put myself out there” to increase visibility to my blog because people might actually read it and …what if they don’t like me and my writing?  What if making a living by writing is actually dependent on my action in trying to build a following?  What if God expects me to do some work on my end to make this dream come true?

The very thought of having to take action to increase my social media presence in order to let people know about my blog terrifies me. To be completely honest, I have zero social media presence so to say “increase” it is a stretch. I have not even posted on my Facebook page.  One of my kids set it up for me years ago and it still has the same Facebook photo.  I do like it but it’s a bit (a decade) outdated.

Now what?  I am not sure what I am going to do…stay where I am comfortable or move into the intimidating social media unknown.  Besides that, I write anonymously.  If I start linking to social media I lose that.

While I am wrestling with my quandary, I challenge you as well.  What would you love to do if you weren’t afraid to try?