I’ve been thinking a lot about dreams lately. Both kinds, in case you’re wondering (my family has some bizarre things going on with dreams) but today I want to talk about dreams as in ambitions, or where you want to go in life.

I feel it’s important to have a life goal, a burning ambition. A dream. Having a dream gives you something to work toward and weigh your choices against.

Now, I do want to distinguish between a dream, and a goal. A goal is just that, a goal to reach. A point to get to to determine success. It can be a dream, super long-term endpoint. But not all goals are dreams. Some are unrelated to a dream, and some break down how to reach a dream or another, larger goal.

Dreams, however, at least how I think of them, are what you want to be or achieve in life. Sometimes they’re 100% impossible to reach, but there’s nothing wrong with that. Wanting to be a chivalrous knight in Medieval Europe is a fine dream, even if unlikely to become reality, because you can still guide your choices and behavior by it.

Now, I have a couple dreams, but the one we’ll use for discussion today is my dream to someday be fluent, or at least decent, at many languages. Yeah, I want to be a polyglot so bad it hurts sometimes. Yes, I am a nerd, thanks for asking.

Now this particular dream has become enlarged recently as I realized one of my gaming friends is one. (If you’re reading this, you know who you are, and you rock.) They gave me some advice about language learning, as I have admittedly been struggling.

It’s not that I find it that difficult- I’m finding i understand Japanese language anime better than I ever expected, and I’ve been pretty lazy about those lessons.

No, the real issues here are two-fold. (Or three, depending how you count it.) First, there is self doubt and negative self talk. But on the other end of the spectrum, there is overeagerness and overconfidence.

Let’s talk about that negative side first, as it’s what most people are going to understand all too well. Everyone has a negative voice in their head. What differs is what the voice sounds like, in terms of word choice or if you can actually give it a sound of sorts, and how loud or hard to ignore it is.

My negative voice has a name, just like my positive/mentor voice does. You’ve all met Shorty, and that’s how she came about. Well, I chose an enemy of hers from her early stories as the negative voice. I’ll explain why I named them later, but her name is Danielle. (Apologies to any Danielles reading- I have never met a Danielle I didn’t get along with, but that’s the name I came up with at 7ish. She becomes a good guy in later versions of Shorty’s story!)

Now, Danielle is a bit loud at times in my head, telling me how stupid I sound practicing new languages, or that what is the point because it’s never going to be useful? At those times, it’s easy to become discouraged and want to give up. It’s easier the louder the voice is, or if people in the real world are echoing your nega-voice. (That probably sounds dumb, but I like it and I’m keeping it for this and a future post.)

The important thing is to find a way to combat this. For me, it’s either a fight between Shorty and Danielle, or I reinforce how quickly I’ve improved. In the case of Japanese, I put on a subbed anime and listen to the words, checking myself against the subs. When I realize I’m understanding more than I thought I would, even after a break in practice, it really defeats the nega-voice.

For you and your dream, your method may vary, but finding one is key. You need a way to subdue that nega-voice and get back to crushing it! Easier said than done, I know, but it’s that or give up entirely.

As for that second issue… not everyone will have it. Not everyone will have bouts of getting too much going at once. I sure have, though!

I’ve currently got about four or five languages started. That’s too much to do at once, anyone would agree to that. Naturally, this makes is easy to get overwhelmed and decide it’s too hard to continue.

This is where my polyglot friend kept me grounded and set me back on the right path. They told me to pick one language and stick with it until I feel comfortable with it, and even helped me narrow it down. (I decided on German for now. We’ll see how long it takes!)

Now, I’m going to apply some lessons from my friends at Nerd Fitness to help me achieve my dream of being a polyglot. I’m going to, this weekend sometime, sit down and break my current objective, learning German, down into easy to manage steps. They’ll be quantifiable too, so I can say objectively whether I completed it or not. You can find the advice I’m referencing here.

For future reference, yes, I will occasionally reference Nerd Fitness. They’ve taught me a lot and I’m a loving member of the rebellion. (Even if I can’t afford the programs I want to do right now. But I’ll discuss that later, I think.)

Now, back to dreams. I think everyone should have a dream. Do you dream to become president? Start by making yourself into the kind of person you want to see running the country. Want to learn martial arts? Even if you can’t afford classes, start looking into options, and start doing some basic exercises in the meantime. Want to own your own home and be debt free? Yeah, that counts as a dream! Start by taking a look at your finances and deciding how to start that journey. I’m not good with money, so I can’t give more than that for that goal.

The point is, you can use your dreams to reach your dreams. Look at that dream and decide what you can do today to get you even a step, even a millimeter closer to the person in that dream. Don’t run too fast, and don’t let your nega-voice get the best of you. If you never achieve your dream, you’ll at least have done something to make yourself more like the you that you dreamed of, and isn’t that a reward in and of itself?