I hear it all the time. The proverbial, “Yes, I do want a relationship…someday.”
When was the last time you said any of the following?
- I’d like to win the lottery…someday.
- I’d like to travel to Spain…someday.
- I want to buy a beach house…someday.
- I’d like to run a marathon…someday. (Ok, unless you’re psycho like me, you don’t say this.)
- I want a relationship again…someday.
What’s the opposite of someday? Today!
When was the last time you said any of these things?
- I want to go for a run today.
- I want to go buy a new pair of shoes today.
- I want to meet my friend for drinks today.
- I’m going to submit that proposal for work today.
Whether your statements matched these or not, what’s different about the use of someday versus today? Did you get the things done today that you wanted to? Did you move them forward in some way? The difference between today and someday is actively doing something to move it into being.
Someday lets you off the hook.
When you keep a dream in the “someday” position, it can be left there indefinitely. And without your attention to flourish, it will rot. Nobody wants rotten dreams, that’s just gross. And disappointing.
Yes, you’ve got your reasons.
Someday is a really great place to dump dreams when we don’t know how to have them, or what don’t know what to do next. It’s a place where looking at your fears isn’t necessary, and where fantasy can seem more appealing than reality. There are all kinds of ways that someday keeps you safe. But keeping you safe isn’t getting you what you want.
The good news is, you can bring your hypothetical future dreams into the present at any moment.
Here’s how in two steps:
1 – Decide right now that your big dreams are just as important (if not more) than your day to day activities.
At the end of your life, do you want to look back and say, “Wow, that was a really good run of washing dishes, doing laundry, going to a job, and being nice?” I’d imagine you probably don’t. You know this. I know this. It is really easy to get swept up in the day to day of surviving. But your life is meant for more than surviving – it is meant to bring you joy. So bring those somedays into today so that when life is all said and done, you played bigger than surviving – and you got to experience the joy that comes from that.
2 – Declare that you want that thing…without attaching the someday to it!
In order to have the big dreams that you want, you have to get ready for them. Stepping in to big dreams can be scary, and you don’t always know what’s going to happen along the way. Relationship falls into that category, for sure. I can say I want relationship, but I don’t really know what twists and turns will pop up along the way. What I do know is that by declaring that I want relationship, I automatically start to see and become aware of what’s getting in my way.
I may realize that there are places I need to grow in order to have the relationship that I want, and then I can work on those. But learning and growing only happens when you walk toward what you want. Learning and growing does not happen in the hypothetical.
If I want to have a relationship with a partner who really accepts and includes my son, for example, I can think of at least a few areas where I need to develop in order to have that. First, I need to know what that would look like to me. And once I figure that out, I need to be able to look at how I want to ask for that, and foster that within my relationships. A great way for me to see the places that I might struggle is to try applying those things in my current situation with other people, like my family or friends. It is in the doing of these things that I start to become the woman who is ready for a relationship that supports this, which inherently brings that relationship closer to me.
I showed you mine, now you show me yours.
Tell me below in the comments, what’s the someday that you’re ready to claim right now? And where are the places you are ready to grow in order to have that? I can’t wait to hear from you what you’re going to work on today!