My daughter fulfilled one of her dreams the other day when she was invited by Dame Malvina Major to sing for her. Hannah was so excited, and so nervous, she nearly fainted! Minutes before she went in to sing for her she heard another girl singing and she rang me in a panic. “She’s singing the same song I was going to – and she sung it perfectly!” After calming her down I asked for a bit more information and found out that the girl before her was in fact an older woman who was in Dame Malvina’s master class. “Remember how gifted you are, Hannah,” I counseled her, “remind yourself how you received a distinction pass in your Trinity Music exams and also that you are here to learn and have not had any lessons for a year – just sing from your heart and you will be fine.” And she was!

Hannah is lucky – I have always encouraged her dreams and nurtured her natural talent. But many others haven’t. When she was 6 I recall one day, as she was happily rocking in the hammock and singing on the verandah, the little girl next door popped her head out of her window and screeched, “you think you can sing but you can’t.” Hannah burst into tears and stopped singing.

As recently as last month when she told a careers adviser at Canterbury University that she would like to audition for the voice school the woman soberly replied, “oh you won’t get in, it’s very competitive.” She hadn’t even heard her sing!

As Christopher Gardner said in his book, and later a movie, the Pursuit of Happiness”, “You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something? Go get it period.”

If your dreams could do with a boost the following questions could be just the motivational kick start you need.


Action Questions Pursuing dreams
Write down at least 5 things that come quickly to mind for each of the following questions, then go back and circle the four things that excite you the most. Make a note of the patterns and themes that occur. (For example, they all have to do with taking a risk; or they have to creativity or helping people) Identify steps to help make these dreams your reality.

What would you be doing if you weren’t afraid?

If you were doing what you love how would your life be different? What changes would you make?

Where do your interests and natural talents lie?

What people do you most admire and why?

What secret longings do you have that are lying dormant or tucked away?

In the past what activities have captured your interest and felt most compelling? (This is an indication of your passion at work.)

If you followed the call of your passion where would it take you?

What activities do you love doing?

What energises you?

Write a ‘wish list’ of all the activities you would love to do if anything were possible.

What do you dream about?

Think about someone who has a ” dream job” - . What do they do?

What are you doing when time seems to fly?

What are your hobbies?

If money were no object, what kind of work would you love to do?

As Oprah Winfrey said, “I firmly believe that the universe dreams a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself….you’ve got to open yourself to the dream that the universe has for you…you’ve got to discover your true calling.”


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Dream Big

Most people don’t dream big enough. Instead they take the save option or settle for less. Lack of confidence is often to blame and underlying this is an often unspoken expectancy that they won’t achieve their goals. I recall a story about a man who was driving with his wife one day. They were going to the stadium to see a game and were looking for a park. He was horrified when she pulled into a park miles away from the gates. “Why are you parking here? “He cried. “Because I’ll never get a park any closer.” Never mind where you’re parking your car, he later reflected, where are you parking your dreams?

Do you have a positive expectancy or are you settling for less?

Sometimes thinking big means you have to grow into your dreams. If you’re not growing chances are that you are not living either.

When I first started coaching I remember setting a big goal for myself that I wanted to present a workshop at a major international conference. I tapped into my creativity and intuition to help me by asking “How can I find a conference to present at?”

Little coincidences, or what intuitives refer to as synchronicity, started to occur. A newsletter was emailed to me from Australia telling all the people who subscribed to it about an upcoming conference in America. I was really excited and emailed off a proposal. Everyone said I was mad and that there was no way I would get selected to present my Passion Driven Work model of career planning. My business partners in The Passion Pack, who are normally really optimistic, said to me, “Selling passion to the Americans is like selling coal to people in Newcastle!” Still I kept my faith and kept visualising a successful outcome. Then one day the letter came telling me that we had been successful. Then I panicked! It was one thing to dream it; it was quite a different thing to actually have to achieve it! I panicked even more when I heard that Mike and Nigel couldn’t come with me. I felt that without them to support me I was going to be hopeless. I really had to work hard on my confidence to grow into this opportunity, I even considered not going.

But once I committed to my dream I was so pleased at the results. It was a full capacity crowd, I made some fantastic contacts, we sold all the Passion Packs I had taken over and I received a standing ovation. What really made the trip worthwhile was an email from a lady who attended:

“I don’t know who I am emailing…so whoever you are, could you please tell Cassandra Gaisford, that she was the most brilliant, most calming, most truth filled person I heard speak at the ICDC conference in San Francisco. When I heard Cassandra speak I knew she knew what she was talking about. I hate using words like career pathways, school to work, interest inventory etc..etc..It really is as simple as awakening oneself to dreams, passions etc to feel alive and happy.”

For me this was confirmation that when you come from the heart and believe in something with such a passion it inspires others and becomes a reality.


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Labels: achieving goals, Happiness, Motivation, passion