If you’ve ever seen the movie The Secret Life of Walter Mitty you’ve been inside the mind of a dreamer. Someone who desires to say hello to the girl, stand up to a bully, and speak their mind. The film grows from the absurd internal thoughts of a shell of a man to an individual who goes after the life he wants.

This is fiction of course. Or is it?

Have you had thoughts like that before? Where you had a glimpse the life you wanted, the job you crave, or the hobby you just didn’t have time to invest in? Then you let it sink into the chaos of a life filled with the churning waters of busy. Good. I’m not the only one.

The problem here is not the dream. The issue is action. We are dreamers. Ideas come and go all day. But then we go to bed, to a meeting, back to the grind.

Have you ever stopped and asked yourself what your life would look like if you started to move toward your dream, even just one inch in that direction?

What if you began to write every day no matter what? Or took one night and did a pottery class? What if you volunteered for a campaign? Maybe asked someone to lunch who is closer to where you want to be and picked their brain?

Life is not easy, and we aren’t promised one more day. But is not a life lived with the desires of our hearts far better than one lived only in our mind?

There is, of course, no guarantee that we’ll get to the place we want to be. But I assure you of one thing. You’ll be closer to realizing it than you were yesterday. And if you stick with it, you’ll have the best chance of reaching it some day.