Questioning is an activity that checks and renews our spirit. In order to come up with powerful solutions, we have to ask powerful questions. The questioning attitude presumes an attitude of openness—that we don’t know it all and we’re open to new dimensions of learning, experiences, and information. Questioning invites the creative process. It starts with not knowing and creates answers out of the void or nothingness.
With this notion in mind I will post a question each week and encourage you to live in that question, to discover what the dream activist in you replies! So, plan on asking yourself this week’s question, and any others that come to mind. I also highly recommend writing in your journal, as new insights come to you, and also talk to other dreamers about what you are learning and discovering.
One of my favorite quotes is: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”~ Mark Twain~ Let’s Sail!
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This first week of 2017 :
PUT YOUR WISHES, HOPES, AND DREAMS INTO PICTURES…Take time to create a Dream Board—a symbolic visual representation of all your wishes, hopes, and dreams.
Now in week 2 ... Ask Yourself:
How will I express who I am in this lifetime?
For week 3…Ask Yourself:
What is the greatest achievement I can imagine myself accomplishing?
For week 4…Ask Yourself:
What is the greatest contribution I could possibly make?
For week 5…Ask Yourself:
What are the implications of living my dream?
For week 6…Ask Yourself:
Where does my passion lie?
For week 7…Ask Yourself:
What is my life about today?
For week 8…Ask Yourself:
What is the mark I would make on the world if I were in charge of my life and there were no reasons or excuses why I couldn’t?
For week 9…Ask Yourself:
What is the greatest me I can imagine being?
For week 10…Ask Yourself:
What things do I do differently because I am living my dream?
For week 11…Ask Yourself:
Which of my problems of today might become opportunities for learning tomorrow?
For week 12…Ask Yourself:
What messages from within do I want to begin to honor?
For week 13…Ask Yourself:
What parts of my status quo am I most worried about upsetting?
For week 14…Ask Yourself:
What aspects of myself long to be expressed more fully?
For week 15…Ask Yourself:
What times have I felt the most alive and connected with life?
For week 16…Ask Yourself:
In what ways am I living according to someone else’s idea of what I should be or do?
For week 17…Ask Yourself:
How would my life look if I forgot about being modest and made my own greatest wishes and desires known?
For week 18…Ask Yourself:
Am I holding onto any dead dreams?
For week 19…Ask Yourself:
Have I had trouble identifying what my dream is, or have I stalled somewhere along the way to making my dream a reality?
For week 20…Ask Yourself:
What are some potential abilities or interests that I am not expressing?
For week 21…Ask Yourself:
As I picture myself expressing my unique talents and doing what I love the most, what do I see?
For week 22…Ask Yourself:
What unique contribution do I want to make to the world?
For week 23…Ask Yourself:
What are the feeling states I most treasure and want to fill my days with as I am living my dream?
For week 24…Ask Yourself:
What is my Biggest Dream?
For week 25…Ask Yourself:
What do I want to experience more of, or experience for the first time?
For week 26…Ask Yourself:
What have I learned from answering all the questions so far?
For week 27…Ask Yourself:
What interferes with my being able to live the way I want to?
For week 28…Ask Yourself:
Do I have any habits that I am allowing to stand in my way of living my dream?
For week 29…Ask Yourself:
What new habits will I be practicing now, that replace any old dream-defeating habits I identified last week?
For week 30…Ask Yourself:
Do I have any beliefs that I am allowing to stand in my way of living my dream?
For week 31…Ask Yourself:
What new beliefs will I be embracing now, that replace any old dream-defeating beliefs I identified last week?
For week 32…Ask Yourself:
Do I allow any of the people in my life to stand in my way, of living my dream?
For week 33…Ask Yourself:
Do I have any “things” that I am allowing to stand in my way of living my dream?
For week 34…Ask Yourself:
When I reread my answers to the previous week’s questions, do I see any common threads or themes? Do I want and need to make any changes?
For week 35…Ask Yourself:
What do I observe about the way I spend my time?
For week 36…Ask Yourself:
How do I want to plan to create my future use of time?
For week 37…Ask Yourself:
What is my favorite way to tell people what my Biggest Dream is?
For week 37…Ask Yourself:
What am I doing when I feel like a winner?
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Please feel free to write to me here, scroll on down to bottom of this page, if you have any questions or comments! (Or, if you prefer to contact me by e-mail write to me at joyce@joycechapman.com to share even more! I love to hear all about what you discover by asking yourself each week’s question.)
Many years ago I wrote this Eleanor Roosevelt quote in my journal. “When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.” Then I made a long list of what I wanted to contribute this life time! (And, guess what, I have lots more to do…and I plan to keeping adding to this list…until I die! :))
I just love this quote, “Hide not your talents. They for use were made. What’s a sundial in the shade?” Benjamin Franklin so I’m adding it to my dreamboard.
I reread this week’s question, In what ways am I living according to someone else’s idea of what I should be or do?— several times and nothing is coming into my mind to write. Can you give me some other hints for some other journaling to help me answer this question?
HI! If you saw my Facebook post I gave another little tip that might help you. It is/was: I’m going to grab my journal and make a list of times I’ve been true to who I know I am! I did and loved that I realized I am living now totally living TRUE to myself! I am celebrating this. Try writing a list of your own and see what you discover.
Hello Joyce, I just found your website this morning and found this page,with all these great thought-provoking questions. So now I’m wondering should I start off my asking with week 1 or just start off with today’s: What times have I felt the most alive and connected with life?
Hi John, Of course the choice is yours! And…I think you’ll like doing the activities and questions in the order I’ve posted. They are designed to build on each other.
Visit my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/celebrateyourdream/ if you want some ideas for journaling ideas to help and empower you to get to the answers that you already hold inside yourself.
Because it is my favorite thing to talk about. I love talking about my dream and work and especially if I am asked. And I love hearing about other people’s big dream. It lifts my spirit and brings me joy. I do wish I had more people in my life who love to talk about their dreams too.
What is your dream? What is your work? Tell us more!
One of the things on my list of the greatest contributions I can make is to inspire others to Live Their Dreams when I got this message today after re-posting a facebook photo of Natalie’s husband magical work with restoring and building guitars, she wrote this update and so now I am sharing …just because.
“Hi, Joyce. I’m enjoying the results of earlier dreams and doing a great deal of conferring with nature, as I get my kitchen garden planted. Spring has been glorious here this year and we are enjoying every moment we can spend outdoors before it gets hot and dry. Also, since those days in San Diego, I’ve written a few western novels reflecting the remnants of ranch life that still exists here in Idaho. Very satisfying work for me. People ask me when I’m going to publish them and I laugh. It’s like asking me when I’m going to publish my daily journals. “Probably not in my lifetime,” is usually my answer. I write every day for the joy of it. I’ve already been rich and famous, so no need to go there. Stephen and I are happy doing what we most enjoy and that’s enough for us. As for our young dreamers–WOW—how great they are. Our daughter Rebecca fulfilled her dream of becoming a nurse, all the while raising up 5 children, now ages 4 – 23 and continues to enjoy her choice of profession along with love of family. Her eldest just graduated from college with a degree in business and graphic arts and starts her first job soon working for a company that’s in her home town. Eldest grand son is now in second year of a 5-year engineering program specializing in robotics, also his dream. The rest are working away at their dreams, too. Our son, Jonathan, is a broadcast journalist for NHK in Tokyo—fulfilling the dream he shared with us when he was 10 years old when he said, “Mommy, I want to live and work in JAPAN!” So—see what a great influence you have had in our family!!! What a blessing to have a dream and move in a special direction to fulfill it. Love to you always, Natalie & family
As I started my day today I realized that I did not have any comments because I had never activated that option on my blogger site. (Yikes, I said when a client told me just yesterday that I’d never replied to her blog entry a long time ago…So I checked to see why not.) So..I just now set that up and hoping I can now get some new comments. That will really energize the dreamer part of me! 🙂
Love this quote! “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”–Howard Thurman
I’m also a long-term journal keeepr. What inspired you to start? I think I had two starts one when I was about 12 and wanted to write my life like it was a novel. I ended up in a bit of trouble about that my parents read it, and also some classmates. A few years later, when I was about 15 I think, I read a book called Becoming a writer’ by Dorothea Brand (I think), and she recommends writing in your journal twice a day once when you’re just waking up, and then again later.I have never been very disciplined about my journal-keeping, and it quickly degenerated into much more shallow stuff and what’s going on in my life I identify with Katherine Mansfield’s quote about her huge complaining journals’. They’re also the place I write the first drafts of everything, and make lists, and occasionally even explore ideas. I’ve quite often reread them to see who I was at a particular point in my life, and what was going on. Remembering things I’d forgotten, and understanding some things better. But I’ve not really used them for anything reworked anything in them into something creative. And they are so, so private for me. (Sean is under instruction to destroy them unread if when I die). But I’ve been inspired by people (including yourself) who have used their journals in their art in some way.I’ve always enjoyed reading other people’s journals too they can be a place of amazing thought, and amazing writing. I haven’t read a lot of how to’ books, but I can see that various examples of what you could do’ rather than what you should do’ would be wonderful. I like your idea!Do you have any favourite published journals?