What is your dream? Do you know what it is that you are pursuing right now? Do you have a long-term vision for your life?

And when I ask you those questions, what are the emotions that you feel? When I talk about your dreams, are you filled with excitement, passion, and energy for the possibilities of the future? Or do you experience more negative emotions like fear, anxiety, or stress?

For some of you, dreaming comes naturally…it’s something you love to spend time on. You have an imagination that is always thinking about future possibilities and goals you want to go after. You have a big vision for your life that is pulling you forward and giving your days excitement.

But for most people, this is something that is not a huge part of life. I know you have so many different roles and responsibilities that you play. Oftentimes, it’s hard to just find time to relax or spend quality time with family…let alone carve out time to just dream and think about the future. 

The reality is, most people get so caught up in the here and the now that they don’t take enough time to step back and get a vision for the future. When there are seemingly endless fires that you have to put out each day, or people that are calling for your attention, your focus is so easily on the day to day things that you lose sight of the future. This happens to me all the time. 

Naturally, I will get caught up in everything that is right in front of me that I don’t take enough time to get a larger vision for my life and enough time each day to really connect to the vision. 

I’m sure you can relate. 

When was the last time you took a break from the stresses of the day to day and just let yourself dream? Let yourself get a bigger vision for your future. Gave yourself permission to just let your imagination go wild and think of possibilities of what you could do.

Mark Batterson has a quote that I love where he says, “We start dying the day we stop dreaming. And ironically, we start living the day we discover a dream worth dying for.”

We start dying the day we stop dreaming. That line hit me hard when I read this quote. 

If you aren’t experiencing as much joy and excitement in your life right now as you want, it could be because you don’t have a compelling dream or vision that is pulling you forward. If you wake up each day and don’t have something that is really exciting to you to work hard on and an impact and a mission to fulfill, it’s hard to go through each day excited.

Giving yourself permission to dream big and think of possibilities in the future is one of the best gifts that you can give yourself. But unfortunately, it’s something that not many people do on a consistent basis. 

5 REASONS

In his book, Put Your Dream to The Test, John Maxwell gives 5 of the Most Common Reasons People Stop Dreaming or Have Trouble Identifying Their Dreams. I thought these were really interesting and so I wanted to share them with you today. 

The first step to starting to dream more and to give yourself permission to get a bigger vision for you life is to identify what has been holding you back. If you don’t know what has been holding you back, it is hard to move forward. 

As I go through each of these 5 common reasons people stop dreaming, try to identify which ones have been affecting you.

Number 1, you get discouraged from dreaming by others.

Someone in your life, whether it be someone you know well or someone you don’t know at all, said something or did something that caused you to stop dreaming. Maybe someone told you that your dream was stupid and that you need to go get a real job. Maybe someone told you it was too risky and that you would be better off doing something else. Maybe someone told you that weren’t good enough, talented enough, smart enough, or that you didn’t have what it takes. 

Those kind of comments can be devastating. They can end up being deep wounds that cause you to just stop dreaming or thinking big because you don’t think you can ever measure up. 

Unfortunately, it seems a lot of the world is out there to crush your dreams. People get uncomfortable with dreamers sometimes because it make them feel like they should be doing something more themselves. People oftentimes criticize dreamers or try to tear them down because they want to feel better about themselves. 

I think this is why there is so much hate and discouragement out there online. Most of the negative comments come from people who have also been hurt and don’t have the courage or capacity to dream anymore, so they want to take others down with them. 

Think through your life, has there been a time where you got really excited about a big idea and then were derailed by a hurtful comment or by the actions of others? If so, it is worth taking a deep look at your life to see if this has been negatively affecting you going forward. Has that incident caused you to settle in different areas of your life? Has it caused you to never want to dream big or risk again?

If the answer is yes, don’t be discouraged. I have been there, I continue to be there and have to work through it. But the encouraging part, is you have now identified an areas of pain that has been holding you back and now you can start to work on it and rewrite that part of your story. 

The truth is, you have what it takes! You have everything you need to pursue that vision you feel like God has placed on your heart. You are worthy of pursuing a big dream and going after that vision that you have for your future. You can rewrite that story! 

The second reason people tend to stop dreaming is because of past disappointments and hurts. 

As you go through life, you are going to experience some bumps and bruises. There are going to be times when things don’t go the way you hoped or planned. There are going to be times when you step out and take a risk and end up falling flat. 

How have you let those times affect you? Have they completely killed your capacity to dream? Have they caused you to settle? Have they caused you to give up on your vision?

As you get older, you will experience more of these moments of pain or disappointment. That’s why a lot of times, people dream less and less as they get older. They’ve experienced some pain and never want to experience it again so they make their lives as comfortable as possible. 

The problem is, when you stop dreaming, you stop really living. When you only seek comfort, you stop growing. 

Think about some of your biggest triumphs in life…most likely they came on the other side of some pain and struggle…that’s what made them such a triumph.

Think of some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned in life. They probably came on the other side of some mistakes and failures. 

Think of the moments where you felt closest to God or got to know his character better. They were most likely in the midst or the immediate aftermath of pain and disappointment.

These things are a natural part of life and, when used correctly, can lead to your greatest breakthroughs. You don’t experience the mountaintops because of a lack of pain and struggle, you experience the mountaintops because of the existence of pain and struggle.

Have you let hurts and disappointments kill your capacity to dream? Have you let them drive you to a place of complacency? 

If so, spend some time rewriting that story. Turn it into lessons…learn from them…grow from them and then start to dream again! 

Number 3, and this goes hand in hand with the last one, is we get in the habit of settling for average. A big reason people don’t dream big or get an exciting vision for their future is they settle for average to often.

Unfortunately, I hear so many men say things like, “No one likes their job.” or “Success is only reserved for the natural born leaders.” or “That would be great to accomplish or do, but someone like me could never do that.” 

These limiting beliefs we place on our lives cause us to settle for average.

When you believe the lie that you don’t have what it takes, or that people who are living their dream have something special that you don’t, it will cause you to give up on pursuing the things that excite you and cause you to fall into a pattern of passivity.

Here’s the truth, the enemy wants you to settle for average. He wants you to believe those lies. He wants you to think you don’t have what it takes or that others are better than you. 

I believe his greatest tactic right now is to keep men playing average. It’s to keep great men on the sidelines. It’s to keep them distracted or discouraged to the point where they don’t pursue the passions and mission God has put on their lives. 

If he can’t get you to completely give up on God, then the next best thing is to get you stuck in a rut of passivity. 

There’s a famous quote that says, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” 

Have you settled for average in different areas of your life? Have you let pain or discomfort keep you on the sidelines? Have you let criticism from others derail you from your mission?

It happens to all of us at some point of time. If you find yourself settling for average, now is the time to start dreaming again. Allow yourself to get a bigger vision of your life and pursue it with all you got! 

The fourth reason people oftentimes stop dreaming is they lack the confidence needed to pursue their dreams.

This is a big one. I believe more dreams are killed immediately by a lack of confidence than dreams failing along the way. Most dreams die immediately because your brain will start to ask you how in the world you are going to pull it off, and then you start to question your abilities and don’t ever get started. 

Is there a dream you’ve had where you immediately disqualified yourself from? 

It takes confidence to even talk about a dream to others and even more confidence to pursue it. 

Here’s the thing, you will find the most confidence in life when you are taking consistent action and making consistent progress toward a meaningful pursuit. 

Very rarely do you feel 100% confident before starting something new. You have to become comfortable starting something without 100% confidence but knowing that you will gain confidence as you gain skill and experience. 

As your competence grows, your confidence will grow. When you start to get better and gain more skills and experience, you will gain confidence.

Think about the last time you started a new job. On day 1, you don’t feel confident about anything. It all feels overwhelming. You don’t feel comfortable at all. But as you do the job week after week, those things that seemed hard at first start to become easy. And now you probably do most of those things on autopilot. 

It’s the same with big dreams. They honestly should scare you. They should make you feel uncomfortable. But as you take consistent action, the confidence will come. 

There are many times in your life where you have done something new and gotten good at it. Lean on that success as a confidence boost that you will figure things out as you go. 

Don’t let a dream die before it ever begins because of a lack of confidence.

Alright, the last reason people don’t dream is because they lack the imagination to dream.

I think the real reason here is because people don’t take time to dream. God has given you the capacity to dream. He has given you an imagination. He has given you unlimited potential. He has given you many gifts, talents, and abilities. 

You have the ability to think of the future. You have the ability to dream and use your imagination, the problem is, you are not intentionally making that a part of your life and so your dreaming muscle is weak. 

Just like any other muscle, you need to work it out in order for it to grow. You need to start using that muscle for it to get strong. Like I mentioned before, I naturally get caught up in the day to day activities that I must actually put in teams of brainstorming and dreaming in the calendar or it will not happen. You have to be intentional. You have to be proactive. 

If you don’t invest any time into thinking about the future, you cannot then say that you don’t have an imagination. You don’t have an imagination problem, you have a scheduling problem.

So here is my challenge to you today, in the next week, plan a time to just dream. It could be 30 minutes or a full day away, but put some time in your schedule to think about your future and give yourself permission to dream big. Give yourself time to think of a future that is exciting and compelling to you. 

This will be one of the biggest blessings you can give yourself. 

And as you do it, watch out for the 5 things we covered today that might stop you.

Thanks for joining me today! I hope this was helpful. I hope this was inpriing and I truly hope and pray that God gives you an exciting vision for your future as you take time to dream! 

Please share this with others if you found it helpful. Leave a comment or any questions you might have as well. 

Go live a life you’re proud of by living intentionally!