I guess the cat is out of the bag now. I wanted to become a full-pledged writer as much as my husband wants to become a full-pledged photographer. And we are both working our way towards that dream.... towards that goal. I've read that the difference between a dream and a goal is the time factor. You set a time when you will achieve a goal whereas the dream has an indefinite time as to when or if this will ever happen. We both started with our dreams but we did not stop there. We prayed about that dream everyday. And God who blesses dreams turned fantasy into reality. Because for God there is nothing impossible.
I read this book From Success to Significance by Lloyd Reeb and it described people who have lived the first half of their lives. They were financially successful but felt their lives were lacking in meaning. They were not answering to the call within. There is that sense of emptiness or that sense of restlessness, wherein you know that there is something more that you ought to be doing but are not doing right now. That was what struck me and Alvin these past two years.
Anyway, this book created a roadmap for me. It asked all the essential questions that I needed to answer for myself. My husband and I have lived the first half of our lives and we are now into the second half. It may seem too early for some that we have retired as doctors. But we have our dreams which has now started to transform into goals. And we simply needed to follow the call of our hearts, in pursuit of significance rather than success. Some people would be struck by this in their 40s or even in their 50s. I have an uncanny notion that this might be part of the midlife crisis phenomenon. However, whereas the midlife crisis would be viewed in a more negative way, this halftime tends to look at this phenomenon of "midlife crisis" in a very positive way because it gives you the time to pause, look back at your life and how you have lived it in the past and look towards the future with a sense of purpose.
Now, I am reading the ebook "48 Days to the Work You Love" and this even further puts into detail the structures that I need to achieve my goals. It helped me see all the different aspects of my life that are most essential and needed to be balanced. Work, family, financial, physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual.
For those who are really serious about living their dreams, Bo Sanchez's Five Year Life Dreams Success Journal might be able to help in making a Personal Mission Statement. This is just a booklet or a journal of sorts where you will be asked to write down your personal mission statement and the goals for each of these aspects. There are simple questions that you need to answer. If you want a more in depth way of looking into your life's mission, then The Path by Laurie Beth Jones would be the right book for you. This may sound tedious for some, but for me, it's worth all the time and effort because it's where my dreams started to become goals and then slowly transformed into realities. And unless you really put conviction and determination in living your dreams, these dreams will only remain as dreams and you will continue asking yourself why some people are living their dreams and why you are not. It only takes one step to do that... and that is the most crucial step.... to say yes to that dream. Write it down and put a time factor when you wanted it achieved. Then start with your objectives, your mini-goals... which you can achieve in a short period of time. The year 2009 is about to end. This is the perfect time to be looking back to the years that have passed, to plan ahead and to move forward into living your dreams.
As for me, I am reviewing my Life Dreams Success Journal for 2009, checking the goals that I have met for 2009, reflecting on the ones that I have not achieved, redefining my goals for 2010 and finally, the most essential factor is offering my plans to God. Because He respects our free will and will not impose His will on us, this act of offering keeps the door open for Him to intervene in my life, revise some of my plans to create a better one, and even steer it to a completely different and more exciting direction. Then I can truly live my second half as He deemed it to be.
