On Monday I said that I was done keeping my bigger dreams on hold. I announced that this is it. No more waiting. I’m going after my bigger dreams. Now.
And you know what I’ve learned/remembered this week?
Good Lord it takes a LOT of courage to go after a dream.
I mean, really.
A lot and a lot a lot a lot.
So I’ve been struggling with resistance and fogginess and inner obstacles and fears this week.
But I’m forcing myself to sit down with the Creative Dream Incubator assignments every day, even on the days when I’m not sure what my dream even is. Even on days when I don’t believe in myself.
And you know what? Stuff is happening. Shifts. Clarity. Movement.
This is how it works. Sometimes I forget this. But it’s always true.
You don’t have to know what your dream is.
You don’t have to feel ready.
You don’t have to be sure.
You just have to find the courage to do it anyway.
I am consistently blown away by the levels of courage I see in Creative Dreamers!
To face all of this, the fear and resistance and obstacles, and do it anyway.
And of course, the beauty is that once you face that fear it never ends up being as big as you think it is. And all of this magic and beauty opens up.
But you’ve got to take that first step first, not knowing exactly where it’s going to lead.
If that’s where you are right now, you’re going to love Meg’s story.
And even if that’s not where you’re at – this is one heck of an inspiring story! I’m so grateful Meg has offered to share it.
So take it away Meg:
Before I signed up for the Creative Dream Incubator, I had been stuck for a long time. I was in stasis—paralyzed by fear, convinced that my dream was impossible, and feeling increasingly like I wasn’t “good enough” or “brave enough” to move forward.
Fun times, let me tell you. FUN. TIMES.
What did my dream look like?
A far off spark glowing at the end of a terrifying and seemingly impassable path. With lions. And possibly a mountain in the way. Or a crevasse. And I didn’t have any climbing gear. And OMGWHATIFTHELIONSEATME?!?!
I felt helpless and scared, and mostly I just wanted to run far far away. Or eat an entire chocolate cake while hiding under the blankets.
I was too scared of my dream to do anything but squint quickly at it and then look the other way, too convinced it was a fantasy to put it into concrete terms.
But, if you’d forced me to tell you about it, it probably would have been explained like this, complete with uncomfortable foot scuffing and shifty eyes:
“Umm…I’d like to, you know, combine dancing and teaching and writing. Somehow. And work from home a lot. Yeah.”
And then I signed up for the Creative Dream Incubator. And things began to shift and change.
In the year since I spent time in the Creative Dream Incubator…
-I booked space and advertised my first dance classes in more than three years (no one came, but I learned a TON from that experience. And then I did it again. And someone actually came that time. And now I’m practicing for a new bunch of classes this spring.
Decorations for Spirit Dance Workshops
-I was featured on Jamie Ridler’s podcast, Creative Living with Jamie
-I revamped my wordpress blog and made it into my official website
-I made my first-ever e-book as part of Goddess Leonie’s 30 Days of Goddess e-course and made a revised version to use as a free-gift-with-newsletter-
-I contributed to my first-ever collaborative e-book, Lori Race and Rachel Cole’s Choose Love Project
-I wrote my first-ever newsletter
-I did my first-ever giveaway on my blog
-I posted my first-ever dance video on Youtube
-After making just two dance videos in the span of 6 months, I joined a dance-a-thon challenge in January, and successfully created 12 improvised dance videos in one month (I loved it so much that I recently began a new collaborative project with a friend, and I have a ton of other video ideas in the works)
-I quadrupled my daily blog traffic
-I started my own Right Brain Business Plan, and really began to dig into the nuts and bolts of my business idea.
Meg's Right Brain Business Plan
-I played with a second business idea, and that led to an editing gig on a Real Live Book, Beautiful At Any Size by Stephanie Rainbow Bell (this is a major dream come true for me).
What the Creative Dream Incubator gave me goes beyond a list of the things I’ve achieved since I took the course. It taught me that it’s actually more painful to stay in a place of fear and stuckness than to try something and then “fail” (in quotations because failures are essential parts of success, and they teach us SO MUCH).
Even if your worst fears are realized, like if you host 5 weeks of a dance class and NO ONE COMES, it feels a million times better than not trying. For real. Promise.
Looking back over the past year, I see a winding path. It was full of pauses and full-tilt rushes, of detours and backtracks, of lessons and dreams come true. The mountains and crevasses weren’t so hard once I moved past the fear and actually tried tackling them.
And the lions? it turned out that most of them were just my imagination.
I feel like I spent the past year building the foundations for Spirit Moves Dance and finding my way to the heart of what I wanted.
And I’m poised and ready to leap to the next stage of building my dream.
It feels Real and Possible and Clear. It feels 100% ME. And it looks so very, very beautiful.
Dancing Meg. Look at that smile!
I still struggle with fear and stuckness sometimes. But my dream doesn’t feel impossible anymore.
I KNOW the reality that I want to build, and I know that the fear I feel doesn’t mean that I’m not “brave enough,” it just means that my dream is important to me.
And now I have tools and experiences that I can draw on to calm the fear (or to keep moving through it, which amounts to the same thing) and to find my center again.
If you have a dream, an idea, or even just a quiet and undefined ache for something more, then the Creative Dream Incubator is for you.
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Thanks so much for sharing your story Meg! It’s so amazing to see everything you’re doing!
Check out Spirit Moves Dance for more amazing stuff from Meg and her growing Creative Dreams.
And check out the Creative Dream Incubator if you’re ready to take some big bold steps of your own. Or even if you’re not ready (like me!) but you want to do it anyway.
The Creative Dream Incubator is a self-paced wish-fulfillment master class to help you GROW YOUR DREAM, by guiding you through every stage of the Creative Dream Process. Dreams Growing! Obstacles Shrinking!
New Budget-Friendly Option: You can buy the Incubator one Module at a time.
It’s not often that I find such a great story to share with the fans of BHAG on Facebook (Big, Hairy, Audacious, Goals). More please!
What a wonderful list of accomplishments, Meg! Keep it up!
[...] up for my newsletter, or come find me on Facebook. Thanks for visiting!Today I’m featured over at ABC Creativity, talking about my experience with Andrea’s magical Creative Dream [...]
SO SO SO COOL Meg!!!! XOXO
This is so inspiring, Meg and Andrea!!!!!
way to go MEG!!!
Hooray, Meg! Keep those dreams dancing! :o) This was a wonderful creative highlight, Andrea–so glad you shared Meg with us. And I still love that you’re doing your own course yourself! Every so often the demons rear their heads… so I must remember what you wisely say, “You just have to find the courage to do it anyway.”