What Holds Us Back From Living Our Dreams?

Decluttering our lives can help declutter our minds, giving us room for discovery.

I’m pondering the question: what holds us back from living our dreams? The tag line of this blog is believe in your tiny dreams. Those dreams that seem silly or insignificant or not worth pursuing are often the dreams that really get to the bottom of who we want to be and what we want to do. By choosing to live simply we begin narrowing our focuses in life. By clearing out the clutter in our lives, we begin to learn what is most important to us, and so are better able to achieve our dreams.

But is this it?

I don’t think living simply is all that is required for you to achieve your dreams, and when I say “dreams,” I’m really making a blanket statement. We’re all in different stages of life. Some of us have already seen or begun to see our dreams become a reality. Some of us haven’t. “Dreams” are always different for everyone. Perhaps your dream is to move to California or to own a farm or to work from home or to be able to homeschool your children or to start a business.

I think we always have good reasons not to pursue our dreams. After all those more insignificant or impossible dreams probably seem impractical, too, but this is where I like to start.

I want to take risks. I want to work towards achieving those seemingly insignificant dreams, but in order to do this, I must recognize what holds me back. I think choosing to live simply is a good way to understand this. This has less to do with the actual decluttering of our physical belongings and more to do with the decluttering of our minds. As I said before, I think that as we begin decluttering our lives in all the myriad of ways it can be decluttered our minds have room to move into those valuable spaces of discovery. Those places that really get to who we are.

Here, we can discover what we want, what we really want, but then what?

I think the next step is to look at everything you have, your family, your children, your house, your job. Look at it, even the parts that you’re dissatisfied with, and find those things that you’re most thankful for. You may rent your house and it may not be the ideal living situation for you. You may want to own your own house one day, but just haven’t been able to make that work. Or you may be working a 9-5 job, but really wish that you had a more flexible work schedule. Or you may be dissatisfied with your career path.

What in your life can you be thankful for? Surely, in all of those uncomfortable dissatisfactory places in our life, we can find something to be thankful for, and this change of mindset can be a huge starting block for us when we begin working towards those impossible dreams. A positive outlook on life might seem really cliché, especially if it feels forced or difficult, but it really can change your life.

In a way, learning to say, “I am thankful for ________ because ________,” is a way to declutter our lives.

So, if you’re starting to think about living more simply, and you’re trying to narrow your focus in life to what is most important to you try to take stock of everything that you have and everything that you’ve done, and begin to say out loud what you’re thankful for.