From Dreamer to Doer
Consciously Creating the Future by Moving Beyond Our LimitationsOpening Epigraph — Choosing Beyond Comfort
“You can choose courage or you can choose comfort. You cannot choose both.”
In my formative years, the music of the 1970s shaped more than my taste — it shaped my inner language. One of my favourite bands was Supertramp. Their song Dreamer doesn’t celebrate imagination. It questions it.
The dreamer is portrayed as foolish. Unrealistic. Someone who should stop imagining and get serious.
“Dreamer, you stupid little dreamer.
So now you put your head in your hands, oh no!”
For many of us, that message didn’t stay in a song lyric.
It quietly became instruction.
Stop daydreaming.
Be realistic.
Grow up.
Over time, imagining a different future may have started to feel risky. Wanting more may have felt unsafe. Envisioning something better may have seemed irresponsible — or even dangerous.
Not because dreaming was wrong,
but because for many of us, hoping once came with a cost.
What This Exploration Is — and Isn’t
This isn’t about positive affirmations.
It isn’t about pretending things are fine.
And it isn’t about bypassing pain or forcing optimism.
It’s an invitation to understand how limitations formed —
and to notice, at your own pace, what you may be ready to loosen.
Many people don’t resist change because they lack motivation.
They resist because their system learned that change — or even imagining it — didn’t feel safe.
Both lived experience and psychological research gently point to the same understanding:
Change becomes possible when the system feels safe enough to imagine functioning well.
Why Imagining the Future Can Feel So Hard
If imagining the future feels uncomfortable, there may be nothing wrong with you.
When life teaches us that disappointment follows hope, the body adapts. It learns to stay close to what’s familiar. Not because vision is lacking — but because anticipation once felt painful.
You might recognize this as:
hesitating to make long-term plans
feeling overwhelmed when you think ahead
staying busy to avoid imagining what’s next
Research on future-oriented cognition shows that difficulty imagining the future is often linked to emotional regulation, perceived threat, and lived experience — not lack of ambition or clarity (Schacter et al., 2017).
When imagining the future begins to feel survivable again — not ideal, not perfect, just livable — something subtle often shifts.
A softening.
A sense of relief.
What “A Better Future” Might Mean
Creating the future doesn’t require imagining a flawless life.
It often begins with imagining yourself coping a little more easily.
Psychologists call this the Best Possible Self (BPS): a future where life has unfolded reasonably well, challenges still exist, and you are meeting them with more steadiness and self-trust (King, 2001; Meevissen et al., 2011).
In lived experience, this doesn’t feel aspirational.
It feels less threatening.
As people allow themselves to sense this kind of future, change often begins — not because they push harder, but because the system stops bracing against what’s ahead.
Where This Became Personal for Me
When I retired from a long career in education, I knew — even as I stepped away — that in some respects, my life was just beginning.
I had worked hard all my life to be of service. Along the way, I gathered many skills. Like many school administrators, I could have remained in the field: filling in for short-term leaves, creating a consulting business, or joining leadership teams in other organizations.
None of those paths were my dream.
What I felt instead was a quiet invitation inward.
I knew how deeply connected I was to my spiritual self. Years of working in crisis situations — along with training in mental health first aid, restorative practices, anti-racism and anti-discrimination, and mentoring — had expanded my understanding of nervous system regulation, the importance of presence, and the complexity of the trauma people carry.
I had also done deep personal work with my own trauma. I knew — not theoretically, but in my body — that transformation required a process:
to gather what had been carried,
to release what no longer served,
and to transform — not for productivity, but for the evolution of the soul.
I knew that if this work had been possible for me, it was possible for others.
One of my quiet strengths is that I see the soul in others — that unconditioned space where there are no limitations.
My question became:
How do I hold space for people to access the fragmented parts of themselves — and become more whole?
Living Best Possible Self — Before I Had Language for It
I didn’t leap blindly into a new future.
I created a future that felt survivable.
Without realizing it at the time, I was practicing Best Possible Self work.
I wasn’t imagining perfection.
I was imagining myself coping well.
I laid out a grounded plan:
I took courses that deepened my skills and understanding.
I put myself out there as both a work in progress and a grounded professional.
I took risks — including telling my story — unapologetically.
I asked for support when I needed it.
I actively worked on removing my own self-imposed limitations.
Each step made the future feel a little more familiar.
Each step reduced threat.
Psychological research tells us that repeated contact with a believable future increases optimism, emotional stability, and self-trust over time (Meevissen et al., 2011; Bandura, 1997).
In my life, it felt like courage — but it was actually regulation.
That grounded approach gave me the capacity to launch a business.
Not quietly.
And not recklessly.
With intention.
With aspiration.
And with active attention to the foundations that would allow it to succeed.
The Possibility Zone
There’s a quote, from a source unknown to me:
“Shoot for the moon. If you miss, you’ll land among the stars.”
That space — the stars — is what I think of as the possibility zone.
One of my spiritual teachers described it this way when she wanted to expand her capacity for more:
“I want this… or something better.”
This isn’t about lack of direction.
It’s about openness without collapse.
It’s about holding no limits, while still laying a strong foundation for what you believe you want.
Because the truth is:
when you dream honestly, you never really know where you’ll land.
And sometimes, where you land is better — and truer — than anything you could have planned.
A Gentle Way Forward: Making BPS a Lived Practice
Understanding Best Possible Self research isn’t the same as living it.
Its impact comes not from imagining once, but from gentle, repeated contact with a future that feels survivable — until familiarity replaces threat (King, 2001).
If you’re curious, here is how BPS can become a practice.
Begin by Letting Fulfillment Be Secondary
Fulfillment doesn’t need to be the goal.
Often, it emerges when the system no longer spends so much energy bracing against what’s ahead.
Rather than asking:
What do I want to achieve?
Who do I need to become?
You might gently ask:
What would it feel like to trust myself a little more?
What does “handling life well” look like for me?
Research shows that imagining idealized futures can increase pressure rather than motivation (Peters et al., 2010).
Realism, here, is supportive.
Imagine Coping — Not Winning
A supportive future isn’t one where nothing goes wrong.
It’s one where:
you respond rather than react
you recover more quickly
you stay connected to yourself under pressure
When BPS focuses on coping rather than perfection, people show increases in emotional stability, optimism, and self-trust (Meevissen et al., 2011).
This isn’t fantasy.
It’s rehearsal for regulation.
Keep the Practice Small and Familiar
The research doesn’t support one-time visualization as transformational.
What matters is low-pressure repetition.
Brief reflection, practiced consistently, has been shown to shift mood, optimism, and perceived agency (King, 2001).
This might look like:
returning to the same future image
noticing how your body responds as it becomes familiar
allowing the image to evolve without forcing detail
Over time, the nervous system learns:
“This future is not a threat.”
Let the Future Gently Inform the Present
This is where fulfillment often begins to appear — quietly.
As the future self becomes familiar, people often notice:
clearer decisions
less internal conflict
choices that feel aligned rather than forced
Psychologically, this reflects growing self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997).
Experientially, it feels like less friction inside yourself.
Fulfillment isn’t reached.
It’s lived.
Why This Matters
If you recognize yourself in this — or in my story — it doesn’t mean you’re behind.
It means your system adapted intelligently.
And this is something both research and lived experience affirm:
What can be recognized can begin to release.
As awareness grows, new options appear.
Change becomes less about pushing — and more about allowing reorganization.
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
Sources
King, L. A. (2001). The health benefits of writing about life goals.
Meevissen, Y. M. C., Peters, M. L., & Alberts, H. J. E. M. (2011). Become more optimistic by imagining a best possible self.
Peters, M. L., et al. (2010). Manipulating optimism.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-Efficacy: The Exercise of Control.
Addis, D. R., Wong, A. T., & Schacter, D. L. (2007).
Schacter, D. L., Benoit, R. G., & Szpunar, K. K. (2017).
A Gentle Closing Reminder
You do not activate your Best Possible Self by trying harder.
You support it by:
imagining realistically
engaging consistently
allowing gradual reorganization
Move slowly.
Trust your pace.
Your system knows how to get there.
