Dreaming Big: How to Overcome That Inner Doubt
How many of us have had someone we know or look up to tell us to “be realistic” when it comes to planning our future? I know I have. I’d like to share with you a time in my life where my dreams were challenged, and how I ultimately overcame doubts within myself to go after them.
In the past, as I shared my future ambitions to move abroad to elders, mentors, or people in my family, I was given advice as to how I should do what’s expected of me as a soon to be college graduate. Graduate. Find a job. Pay off your loans. Go to grad school. But move to Spain? That’s not practical. How on earth will that help you in your career?
For some time, I took their opinions to heart. I truly began to doubt my aspirations. The pressure of others’ expectations had caused me to rethink something that I had desired for so long. I began to position myself to look for opportunities at home, researching graduate programs in my home city, and become a part of the post-graduate job search that felt like a constant topic of conversation among my peers. It felt like the right thing to do. But at the same time, it just didn’t feel right.
One day while scrolling through Instagram, I came across an account that I had followed while studying in Madrid. The account, called Las Morenas de España, featured a post of its creator, Sienna Miller, illustrating her daily routine as a young, black professional woman living in a southern coastal city in Spain. She was living the life that I had dreamt of for quite some time. My dream was her reality. So why shouldn’t it be my reality? At that moment, I decided to follow my heart, and made a promise to myself that by post-graduation, I would be preparing myself for my inevitable move to Spain.
Now, almost three years later, I’m living my dream in Madrid.
In a society such as ours, it’s so easy to get caught up in others’ opinions, and what seems like the practical thing to do. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with going to graduate school right out of college, or pursuing a lucrative career close to home. But I knew it wasn’t right for me, and if I had decided to go in a different direction in my life, I would be cheating myself of something I had wanted for so long.
Soul Sisters, I urge you to never give up on your dreams, no matter how out of reach or unrealistic they feel. Never settle for another person’s expectations. Your future is yours, and yours only. As you dream bigger, you attract limitless possibilities and abundance. You truly do not know what you are capable of achieving if you go through life with a defeatist mindset. Your dreams are possible, you deserve them, and they are waiting for you. Don’t stop dreaming. My move to Spain was just the first step of many successes to come. Are you ready to take that first step?