As a life coach, I would ordinarily say follow your goals because dreams are things that happen when you are not conscious, so why would you follow them? In particular, if you had my dreams you wouldn’t want to follow them, my therapist called them ‘night terrors’ I think that is probably because when I have them, I terrorise  everyone in the house with my screaming. So much so that on one occasion all 3 kids were woken up and ran into our bedroom because they thought we were being attacked, brilliant! Sorry about that kids.

However, having said that, last night I had a dream that I was in a film with Tom Hardy, still smiling! As an actor, that would seriously tick all the boxes. So I have decided to follow my dream and set about getting myself into a film with Tom Hardy.

Ok, so how many of you are now, sighing, laughing, tutting, shaking your head etc Most of you I expect and understandably so, what a ridiculous idea. Do I care? Do I f**k! That’s the great thing with your dreams/goals, they are yours and no-one else’s and ultimately you are the only one who can make them happen, so who cares what other people think? Well, nearly all of us I think, why is it that we let other people drag us and our ideas down, just because they don’t believe we can do it? In my opinion, which is of course the only one I can give you, is that, it’s because they believe they can’t do it, or wouldn’t want to do it themselves or are jealous at the thought of us achieving it, so they tell us we are being silly or ‘aiming to high’ I really despise that one! Well I say – to hell with everyone else and go for it, you only live once, or as we say in our family “you only die once” we feel that is more permanent and therefore gives you more incentive to make the best of your life.

I have done something similar once before, although it wasn’t actually a dream, instead I woke up one morning with the name Nicodemus in my head, just couldn’t shift it. It was bugging me so much that I looked it up in a name book, it means ‘conqueror for the people’. What a superb name for a hero I thought and set about telling his story, a year later I had written and published my book, ‘Nicodemus and the Flight of Argus’. I couldn’t believe it, not only have i struggled with words and spelling my whole life, I didn’t read my first novel until I was 30, I was so slow at reading I was just too embarrassed to try. But also, my English teacher had told me I had no imagination, isn’t it awful how just one sentence can have such a profound impact on a person’s life – be very careful what you say to people, particularly children, they are so impressionable. Nonetheless, I had done it, I had an idea, it seemed preposterous at the time but with the help of a few very special people who supported me wholeheartedly, you need that when you set goals, I did it!

So to sum up this blog, my advice to you is that, if you have a dream or a goal, it really doesn’t matter what you call it because it’s yours, find a select few, or even just one will be enough, who will believe in you and support you and that may not be as easy as it sounds, you may find you need to look further afield but you will find them, if you really want to make your dream happen and then get to work, be committed, innovative, determined,  patient, and inspired and I quote, “If you build it, he will come.” from the wonderful film, Field of Dreams.

Good luck to you all and I would love to hear your dreams and how they are coming along.