Cut to springtime in Amman, Jordan 2017. We’re moving in July. But where? The school year was soon ending, the kids then seven and nine years old, and the summer was on our heels. Recently divorced, the lease on my apartment was coming to an end as were our Jordanian visas. I’d scheduled our going-away parties and a moving sale. We were headed somewhere on a one-way ticket. But where?
Plan A was to move to Washington D.C., where I’d accepted a state department job. My security clearance was in process and my job now frozen under the new adminstration. Over the past six months I watched Plan A go from blazing fire to smoke and ashes. As the flames waned I just kept heaping on more logs, certain that having a plan B distracted me from my plan A. I thought my sheer focus and attention on Washington would help bring it to life despite the state department hiring freeze. I was sure that considering alternate plans might confuse the very busy Universe. But moving to D.C. without this job didn’t feel right.
Over a plate of tabbouleh, my friend Lily asked, “Wherever you land this summer, do you know you’ll land on your feet?”
“YES!” I answered definitively. “I’ll land on my feet… even if I fracture a leg in the process.”
That same evening I opened up my bedside journal. Earlier in the year I wrote an entry creatively titled, “My Dreams.”
The entry was like a shopping list made up of the secret ingredients for a meal I was hoping to cook up. The first ingredient on the list was Write. I’d written a blog the summer before about our quest to travel on kindness and wanted to write a book about our journey and keep blogging. I had a list of people I dreamed to meet, so I added Oprah, Ellen, and Liz into the soup like bits of saffron for good flavor, and as if we were already on a first name basis. I put Travelon the list. I had Relationships and added a descriptor, New modern love (hoping to uncover what that meant and which aisle I’d find it on once I was at the store). Soul Coaching was on the list, even if I didn’t know what it meant either; I liked the way it sounded. I put Women on this list with an underline, wanting to focus my life’s work to the benefit of women especially. And I wrote New York –big and bold with a long dash next to it.
New York– meant New York City. It was the place that had intrigued me since my first visit after college.
New York — meant a dream coming true. Each day I stared at an imaginary picture of myself in Washington D.C., the with the kids, the new office, and the neighborhood in Arlington, Virginia where we’d live and I wondered if it was the most supportive place for us to be. Politics very much not aside in 2017, was D.C. where we wanted to be now at this point in history? I froze up too.
The rest of the story is in the book I’ve been working on since that summer! But I share this here because in the depths of my uncertainty about where to leap to with my two young kiddos, mapping out where to go that summer was not about a rational list of pros and cons. It was not about following the dreams of where other people wanted us to move to. It was about following the direction set by the ambitions of my heart. After looking at that list in my journal, I started to consider New York.
Looking back I can’t imagine our lives without our three years in New York. It wasn’t easy to sell and give away all of our belongings to land in the Big Apple with two suitcases each. But it was right. For us. New York was a launchpad for all of those other dreams — writing, soul coaching, leading circles and workshops for women, and my first tastes of modern love. We may not be on a first name basis, but I even met Liz Gilbert at a meditation event and she wrote me a love note, “I’m in silence today! But I love you!”
What are the dreams of your heart? What are the ambitions you’ve tucked in the middle of some journal, tacked onto a vision board, uttered to a close friend, or lie in the depths of your own heart?
Your ambitions are no joke. They give you direction in life. When you set out on a trip you plug the destination into an app. It’s not about which roads you take as much as moving in the right direction. Same goes for your ambitions.
Want to move to another country, travel and work all over the globe but don’t have a passport or job that’ll take you? Want to run a marathon although you’ve only run a couple of miles? Want to write a book but you’re only scratching out emails now? Want to start a solopreneur business based on your passion even though you’ve done something “normal” most of your life? Want to perform comedy on stage in NYC although you’ve got serious stage fright and only your kids laugh at your jokes?
These are all dreams that lived in my heart until I fanned their flames and decided they were all roads worth taking.
Write down at least five big or small DREAMS and AMBITIONS. Writing them down gets your subconscious brain working on them even if they seem far reaching and unattainable. This is not goal setting time. This is not the time to say, “These dreams are impossible to achieve because of x, y, and z.” This is allowing yourself to dream and dream big of the future you most deeply desire.
As the year winds down, it’s the perfect time to dream.
Beginning January 26th I’ll be coaching a group of people in a six-week series called Ambition to Action. I’ve helped successful organizations like Lego and the LVMH companies, teams, executives, leaders, and myself move ambitions to actions, and I’m so excited about offering this to you. Let’s turn your vision board into an action board!
More info on the Ambition to Action series at: http://www.newyorkminutes.org/ambition-to-action/
Dream as if your life depends on it. It’s free and it’ll help you make 2024 the most fulfilling year ever.
