Last week, I reunited with the ladies from the book club/career coaching class I’d taken at the end of August. Over a period of six weeks, the four of us had met weekly to discuss Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and to share our insights and personal experiences. The class talked a lot about dreams and what we envision for our futures. As with my earlier “Uncover your Calling” class, I struggled a lot with the concept of starting with a big, standalone dream and not having ANY of the details on how to build towards it. I remember feeling frustrated when the class wrapped in September: I didn’t seem to have any more clarity than before. I grew discouraged and impatient: I was reading all these books, doing all these exercises, taking all these classes, and when? When was the answer going to appear? I started to wonder if maybe I was just being unrealistic, impractical, immature, naive. Maybe I needed to just go back to job hunting: tech project management, social media, web editing, whatever.

John is someone who avoids all this contemplative, wishy washy, touchy feely stuff for himself, but oddly enough, he actually “gets” all of this (more than I do even!), and he has this uncanny, amazing way of zoning in to the the essence of everything. Seriously. When I told him about all these doubts creeping back, he reminded me that it’s normal to feel uneasy and uncertain, but he encouraged me to not give up. I’d left a comfortable, secure, and stable job for a reason, and we had planned for this opportunity. We had given up other things in order to create this freedom of choice for ourselves– this chance to take risks and to seek something different for our life together. And so I tried to let go of the guilt and of the feeling that I wasn’t worthy of this liberty and luxury. And then I took that 2-week travel sabbatical. 😉

So when I met the ladies for lunch, I was still a little skeptical. The coach hosted us at her amazing beach home on the coastal bluffs, and she shared with us her dream board from four years ago. I won’t go into her personal details, but long story short, back when she created her dream board, the transition or path from her life four years ago to the life depicted in her dream board was nearly unfathomable. And yet, four years later, she and her husband achieved that dream. The lesson is this: when you envision a dream for yourself, no matter how off-the-wall or impossible or imaginary it seems, when you remind yourself about the dream, somehow– consciously or subconsciously– your mind works to figure out a way to get you there.

Last week, I couldn’t see this process working for me, but I decided to just try to be more open. You see, one of my dreams is to live on a nice ranch with horses and dogs. I want to have a flexible work arrangement, where I work (often remotely) with people I respect, people who are also my dear friends, and we use technology to get shit done smartly and efficiently. On the side, I want to write and blog– like professionally. Oh and I want to be a rockstar– figuratively.

So I had left that luncheon feeling open to new possibilities. Then, a few days later, I returned to the ranch for my horseback riding lessons. My instructor asked why I had been away for so long. I explained that I had left my job. And then, he said he wanted me to help him with marketing/web work to grow the business. Whaaa?? So it’s early yet. We are to discuss the details, but the point is, wow. This is an opportunity to integrate things I love to do: horseback riding, project management, communications, problem solving, and web. Is the universe responding to my positive thoughts and my new state of openness?? Kinda weird, right?