How I wasted 6 years on the wrong daydream

“One day I’m going to have a street food stall”,

 “One day I’m going to have the most popular food blog ever”,

“One day I’m going to work outside”.

OK. One day... So, what are you waiting for?

If you have a daydream if you think that's what you may want "one day" in the future if it makes you smile when you think about it. 

Why wait?

I waited.

I wasted my precious daydreaming time. 

I spent 5 years daydreaming about my Yorkshire Pudding street food stall. It was going to be great.

After a while of just talking about it, I got more serious and spent another year working on the business plan in my spare time. I told everyone about my dream.

I was determined to do it. As I said, I was serious. 

I changed my mind on my dream in 20 minutes.

Do you want to know the biggest mistake I made?

I had never stood behind a street food stall.

The day I went to Exmouth Market on a busy, rainy, cold January lunchtime and plucked up the courage to speak to a street food stall owner, I changed my mind.

The 20 minutes I spent walking around that market, feeling, seeing and listening to what it was really like changed how I felt about my dream in an instant.

It didn’t fit me.

Yes, it fit my brief of having a job where I added value for others and made people smile.

Yes, it met my passion for being creative, cooking and my love of wearing trainers.

But the unsociable hours would mean I wouldn’t see my friends and family.

And then when I felt that cold weather...I knew I didn’t have the motivation to see it through.  

My dream was no more.

I had wasted 6 years.

I had wasted a whole summer sitting at my laptop writing plans, doing maths and reading books about health and safety.

I could have saved all that time by just trying it out.

It’s OK to change your mind. It really is OK.

Just don’t wait.

Follow through on your dream. Run an experiment.

See what it feels like. 

You might just like it.

Either way, you'll know. 

 Liz Ward is Founder and Coach at Slick Pivot. Slick Pivot helps new and seasoned entrepreneurs get good at change. Supporting your pivot journey through one to one coaching, bespoke team workshops, and events to help you find more happiness and growth in your work, whether that is quitting your 9-5, starting and growing that business or developing the right mindset for success. 

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