Years ago TK Coleman told me something like, “The universe will expand to accommodate your dreams.”
It’s a great quote. It’s easy to not give yourself permission to have big dreams because you don’t see any room for them in the universe. The quote reminds that it doesn’t work that way. The universe is literally the sum of people’s dreams. Dream first, expand the universe by bringing it to life.
But something else happens. Dreams are a way of adding substance to a feeling or desire. Your gut has a longing, and your mind adds flesh to the bones by creating a tangible plan, product, or goal around that longing. That’s a dream. But it’s always limited by the information you have access to. A kid dreams of being a firefighter. They have very little info about ways to enact desires in the world as an adult. They desire adventure, risk, heroism, proximity to powerful machines, or cool costumes. Given their limited info, those desires are best expressed through the dream of firefighting. As their info expands through life, they realize that was a limited version of living out those same desires. Maybe they realize founding a company or making movies does it even better.
As your universe expands based on pursuit of your dreams, your information expands. When you information expands, the ways to enact your desires into dreams also expands. In other words, the targets change.
This can be difficult. Changing dreams may cause those around you to think you’ve given up, sold out, or failed. But you can’t let your past control your future. Your 8 or 18 year old self with limited info had different ways to pursue the same desires. Why should that self dictate your present and future self with expanded info?
Every plot twist seems out of character at first, but that’s just because you’re in the middle of the story. Step back and view the entire arc and you can identify the driving force consistent throughout. Michael Jordan quit basketball and ruined his story. Then he came back and revealed that it was all part of a unifying thread and his story is better because of it.
Don’t be afraid of dreams too big for the current universe. It will expand. And don’t be afraid to adjust your dreams based on your new universe. You should expand too.