Cleaning out your dreams closet, continued

I wasn't sure at first.

Both directors had been frank, knowledgeable, and kind. Yet my intuition was telling me in no uncertain terms that the plans I'd been incubating so carefully over the last seven years were not ones I'd be well advised to pursue.

It was a few days before I recovered enough to dig deeper. I still wanted to become a counsellor, and it was painful to admit that I might be on the way to giving up my dream. When at last I did face up to reality, I had to admit that I hadn't connected with the director of the counselling psychology program. In fact, we'd been at several wavelengths' remove. The longer we spoke, the more certain I became that my values were on a direct crash course with the school's social-justice bent. Although I wanted to help people who needed it, I was more interested in coaching than advocating for social and political change.

The outgoing director of the organizational psychology program was a different story altogether. I appreciated her warmth, business-like demeanor, and quick wit. She was clear on the relative merits and disadvantages of her program and she was funny. Not only that, but she was well dressed and well groomed. All this felt strangely familiar. Where had I met people like her before, I wondered. Oh, right -- as in right in front of me. In fundraising.

At this point in my analysis, a wise little voice from somewhere deep inside me piped up: "Forget a degree in psychology. You don't need to go there. Fundraising has everything you want already, including psychology, and it won't cost you tens of thousands of dollars to get started. You're already well on your way."

I had to agree with the WLV. I *do* like fundraising. I really like it. It's just that the grass had seemed greener on the psychology side of the fence. Consequently, I'd spent so much time gazing over the fence boards that I hadn't seen the meadow lushifying around me.

Here's the part where you might benefit from my experience. I had to do more than daydream about counselling to come to this conclusion. I had to take a good, hard look at what it was going to take to turn my counselling and coaching dream into reality. It wasn't only the chats at my school of choice that had done it. It was learning how difficult it is to start a private practice in Vancouver, how saturated the market already is, and how much effort it was going to take to get where I wanted to go. The exercise helped me to become clear about what I really wanted.

So if you've got one or two dreams in your closet that you haven't tried on for size recently, please do. Don't postpone the moment of truth indefinitely. The odds are, it will either fit you, which is what you wanted in the first place, or it won't, and you'll be able to fold it up carefully, perhaps with a sentimental sigh, then more cheerfully make way for one that does.