I listen to kids and young people all the time and one thing that strikes me is that they have an amazing imagination for themselves. They want to be amazing things and do amazing things and as they tell me what they imagine, they do it with such conviction.

I hate it when some well meaning adult type jumps right in and reminds them to be practical and runs down the reasons the poor young person’s dream can’t happen. Maybe it can’t. Maybe there are barriers. But there’s also the possibility that it can happen. Barriers can be overcome.

I hate it even more when I hear an adult tell me why they can’t have what they want in life. “I can’t have love because….” or “I’m stuck and I’ll never move beyond where I am.”, or…

You get the picture.

Most of the time, we can’t get what we want in life, but the reasons have less to do with things on the outside than on the inside. We convince ourselves that we can’t have “X” and we’re not going to let anyone change our minds.

One of the lessons I’ve learned is that we can have most of what we want in life. But we have to believe we can. And one of the ways to believe it is to dream loudly.

By dreaming loudly, I mean not keeping our dreams secret, but to imagine them openly and speak of them as things that are going to happen, not things that can never happen, or might happen.

There is a school of thought, held by both pessimists and “realists” that it’s better not to dream too loudly. This school of thought says that creating a clear image of what we want in life, talking openly and assuradly about it, is setting ourselves up for disappointment. And disappointment hurts.

And who wants to hurt? Not me. Life is full of hurt. Why would I want to set myself up for more?

But there is another school of thought that says it’s important to dream big and dream loud and talk about what we want.

Most of the “get the life you want” books tell us to dream loudly. They want us to visualize what we want, draw it, write it down, talk about it. Read enough of these books and watch enough of these programs and you’ll here story after story of people who have dreamed loudly and clearly and years, months, and sometimes only days later, it came to them.

“Hogwash!” we say to ourselves. And yet… we constantly hear that kind of story in book after book, seminar after seminar. What we are really saying when we say “Hogwash!” is that we don’t believe if can happen to US. As if somehow, there is something particularly bad about ourself that prevents it from happening to us.

Let me ask you another question – how many people who say to hide your dream under a bushel can share stories of their dream coming true?

Very, very few.

Do I know why it works? Well, I am a Christian and I personally believe God is listening and unless there’s something in his plan that says I can’t have what I want, he’s pretty willing to take care of me.

But beyond my personal faith, there are others who have other reasons. People who follow the Law of Attraction (LOA) would say that when we think and dream loudly, we’re telling the universe what you want, and that the universe re-arranges itself to accommodation our desires.

The law of synchronicity, favored by many artistic people would say something very similar.

Psychologists would say that talking about our dreams opens us to the possibilities, and that we see them and are ready to move on them more easily when we see them. They would also tell us that in dreaming loudly, we are telling ourselves that we feel worthy of wonderful things happening to us, and we stop being our own worst roadblock.

Pick your group. Pick your success guru. They may have different terms and words, but they all say the same thing – Imagine your dreams clearly, and make them real to yourself in every way you can. Save pictures. Make a bulleten board. Create a screen saver. Tell people what you dream for yourself. Tell yourself, when you see it in someone else, how you will have that part of your dream for yourself.

Dream Loudly. It works. It just does.

Take care. Journey wisely.

Tom