Dreamcrushers

I’m a motivator, by nature. I love encouraging and building up. In my Strengthsfinders, my top 5 strengths are communication, empathy, belief, developer, and positivity. I was literally made to build people up. Its why I started this blog. While I believe that everyone has the ability to encourage and build up others inside of them, however all of us, at some point, encounter (and sometimes are) dreamcrushers. A dreamcrusher isn’t necessarily someone that sets out to rip people apart for funsies (although sometimes they may be). More often than not, they are the folks who have the snide comments…you know the ones, the sly little side comment that rips apart everything you just said without a blink or even the intent. The ones who say, “I don’t think you’ll succeed” or “Woah, that’s a big goal, you really think you can do THAT?”. Sometimes, the dreamcrusher is you, talking to yourself.

Whoever the dreamcrusher is, whatever they say, you have to fight back. And this eternal-people-pleasing-conflict-avoider is NOT saying to physically or verbally fight back. I mean fight back with the only power you have – the power to prove them wrong.

I spent years being my own dreamcrusher. When I was in the worst of my depression, I was crushing my own dreams of getting better, rising up out of it. When I was half-assing attempts to lose weight, I was crushing my dreams with negative self-talk and, well, half-assed actions. As I lost weight, I crushed my dreams of reaching big goals. I’ve also had other dream crushers. Friends or family with well meaning phrases that hit home in the wrong way, co-workers who raised an eye at my goals or plans, a joke about being fat, a scale that said I’d only lost .2 pounds after weeks of “hard” (see: half-assed) work.

Sensitive Sam used to be, well, crushed by such things. I used to crawl inside myself, beat myself up, and really FEEL the hurt that was, for the most part, completely unintentional, or meant as motivation. And I remembered. I remembered every word and would use that against myself when I was being a dreamcrusher of myself. And then, as I found myself succeeding in more ways that I ever imagined, I found a new way to fight back against dreamcrushers.

I proved them all wrong.

I proved myself wrong as I lost more than 50 pounds of fat off my body. And I proved myself and some others wrong when I pushed for, and succeeded in, getting some hope and revival in my job. I’m proving people wrong with how I am managing myself with this blog, adversity I face in life, and how I manage my stress. I use the dreamcrushers in an entirely different way now.

I let a dreamcrusher be my motivation.

If you are struggling with a family member who is a constant dreamcrusher, with an inner voice that no matter how hard you try to tell yourself that you can, keeps screaming that you cant, a coworker, friend, or acquaintance that said something years ago that you cant get out of your head – change your perspective. Persevere through the dreamcrushers by making that your motivation. Make your success your revenge. Change the narrative by one day being able to go back to them and say, “Thank you. Because you didn’t believe in me, I had to doubly believe in myself, and I not only succeeded, but it made me thrive.”

I’m not saying this is an easy shift by any means. I struggled for almost 30 years before I made that shift in my brain. I also cant give you exact steps to doing it. But I will tell you that coming out on the other side, there is freedom, and I can tell you how I did it.

I leaned on the ones who endlessly supported me, especially when I didn’t support myself. For me, I talked a LOT with my parents and husband, and threw in a sister or best friend for good measure. My husband will endlessly listen to me talk in circles about what I’m feeling and just let me go til I run out of air, which generally makes me feel better. Also, I am basically a copy/paste of my father, emotionally, so when I need some good old-fashioned encouragement, he’s on it.
I utilized those who would knock me out of my funk. My mother is the queen of real talk, and I don’t mean that in a bad way. I mean I can go to her and she can say “knock it off” and I know shes right. Shes willing to be my mirror when I am ultra-angsty and obnoxious, call me on it, and love me all the same. Its invaluable to have people around you who will lovingly kick your butt back to sanity.
I used minor success to pave the way for major silencing of dreamcrushers. When I started seeing results, both on the scale and emotionally, it gave me power. I used that to keep pushing on, again and again, until I used each thought of success to overcome the thoughts of failure.
I love a good cheesy mantra. It can be “you can do anything for one minute” or “if nothing changes, nothing changes” (my personal favorite) or it can be something historical (“damn the torpedoes” which incidentally is about a Civil War battle and you should read about it) or the mantra from my momma, which has sustained me for years, “Be brave, little soldier”. Whatever it is, find the one that works for you, and live through it. Whatever gives you power, goodness, strength to carry on – use it.
Patience, faith, prayer. As a Christian, I know that prayer is a powerful tool. I have faith that I will make it through because I have faith that sorrow is not what God has planned for my life. If you are not a believer/religious type, find your faith in whatever you have. Have faith in yourself to power through, have patience that your mind and body are going to get stronger so you can face anything. Cling to it.

In any dream you have for yourself – weight loss, small business, creating all the things, going to school or back to school, changing careers, moving, building finances, having kids, literally anything, there will be dreamcrushers. They don’t always mean it, but they are always there. They don’t matter, but how you respond to them does. Build yourself up and use it as strength to get to where you want to be. Use it as motivation to just absolutely crush your goals.