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"Whole-istic" Dreams
by Kathie Hightower and Holly Scherer

For the next column in this series, I’ll share the story of one Air Force spouse who felt blocked from pursuing her dream. Some of the things she is doing to bring about change just might be things that will work for you, even if your dream is different from hers.

Before we get into any discussion of your dreams in life, however, I want to address two key concepts.

1. When I talk about "Following Your Dreams," I have an image of a very holistic dream. Maybe I should call it a "Whole-istic" dream. In other words, when figuring out what your dream in life is, it’s important to consider all aspects of your life. You want to be sure to ask yourself the question: "How do I want my life "as a whole" to be?"

Why a holistic approach? I’ve seen too many people (myself included at times) focus on one dream. That might be a career dream, an education dream, maybe even a parenting dream. If you focus too narrowly on one area of your life — if you spend most of your time, energy and attention on that one area to the exclusion of others — you might achieve that one dream, but at what cost?

We all know individuals who have done that or who are in the process of doing that.

- The military member who devotes every living minute and all his attention to his military career, constantly shorting his family, friends and himself.

- The military spouse who gets so caught up in the volunteer position she is passionate about that she neglects her family, her spouse and herself — and sometimes even her health.

- The parent who can’t make any time for her spouse, her friends or herself.
If you are like me, a recovering workaholic, you might recognize this syndrome in yourself. At different times in my life, I managed to focus solely on one area — in my case it was my career. At times that career wasn’t even my dream. But when I did start working on my dream business, my single-minded, workaholic tendencies crept right back in. There’s a big danger in this.

Unless your dream project is something that can fully sustain you in all areas forever, you are cutting off important aspects of life.

So, now when I say create your dream, I mean, create a life that incorporates all the various things that are important to you, one piece of which might be that dream business or dream house or dream vacation. Certainly, pursue it passionately, but not to the exclusion of other important aspects of your life.

2. The second concept key to this process is to start out fully aware of your current abundance. Identify and be grateful for what you already have in your life. I’ve seen people who were so focused on future dreams and goals that they never stopped to appreciate the joys staring them in the face on a daily basis.

If you focus only on what’s missing in your life, your life becomes negative and narrow. You fall into poverty thinking — that "glass is half empty" thinking. Poverty thinking will not help you move towards a dream.

Here’s one way to get yourself into abundance thinking very quickly. Write down 10 things that you are grateful for — big and little. Then, for the next thirty days, add 10 things each morning and 10 things each evening. You’ll quickly find yourself wallowing in abundance.

And that’s a much better place to start from when you go for your dream.

©2001-2002 Kathie Hightower

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