When we stop dreaming

When we stop dreaming?

Doing lessons in different classes in different tipology of schools, we realized that most students dream less as they grow up.

Why? Because we are surrounded by so-called “dreams wreckers”.

They are everywhere: at home, among friends, at school, on the street, hidden between the lines of newspaper articles, in the tv news. People who provide advice based on their personal experience, done at other times, ways and places. We are invaded by the armies of dreams demolition. They teach us to walk on known and safe paths, but these paths do not lead to our very personal dreams, to our idea of success.

If we let our dreams fade under the blows of hammers, we may no longer see them and then not being able to turn on all those attitudes to achieve, with the effect of changing road and reach the safe path of others.

People tend to emulate, to follow the example and the history of the record for the mile explains it very well. For years, many athletes have tried to break down the record for the mile race trying to get under four minutes without succeeding, even increasing the conviction of improvised gurus who claimed that it was impossible for the human physique to exceed that record. Roger Bannister, however, changed the path, he was convinced he could do it and the belief turned into concrete behaviour, that is, the search for new means of training to achieve the goal. In 1954 he obtained the record. But the most surprising thing is what happened after: in the following year were made by other athletes over three hundred repetitions of the record. Among these not only great players like Kip Keino, but also college students. This means that when an extraordinary performance proves to be feasible, it increases in all the people the belief that they can achieve the desired result. It removea a barrier and opens the door to commitment.

Too many times we claim commitment by young people without giving them a perspective. It is always useful to tie the present, the effort for a goal, to a dream. This method inspires a person to a deliberate practice, making him or her able to achieve a goal, trying to break down the mental barriers as much as possible. This is the absolute power of dreaming.