Reclaiming the Dream: When Your Vision Gets Lost in the Doing
What to do when your big dream fades into the background noise of the day-to-day.
Dreams are like shadows. Everyone has at least dream tucked inside their heart, one that often stays there for years waiting to breathe life in the outside world. Like shadows, dreams follow us, waiting for their time to come out and into the light.
Whether it’s a dream like writing a book, living in a different country, or simply having a business that gives us everything we want and need, these type of bold visions for our futures often get clouded by the fog of daily life, and demands.
They often get shrouded by the doing, so much so, sometimes we lose sight of them. So what do you do find yourself far from your vision, and there is just tiny fragments of it left?
How do you put it all back together?
This is my story:
I remember when I used to have a big business dream, one that lit me up from the inside out. It’s why I started this version of my business in the first place.
I started my first business at 16, and did that for decades (well, 17 years to be precise) until I sold the business in 2017 to new owners in the USA. Craving a break (and someone to pay my bills), I went corporate for a few years, starting as a retail assistant for the Imperial War Museums Duxford, and leaving 3 years later as Assistant manager.
I left the IWM during covid, when I could see the signs that it was time to exit from the boundaries imposed by a corporate business. I didn’t fit into their boxes, nor did I want to. The siren song of being self-employed became too much, and I returned to my roots, as an entrepreneur, this time with a new vision.
I became a VA during covid, helping other business owners with their social media content, copy and marketing needs. I knew my skills learnt from my previous businesses and corporate life, could help others. In was in this version of a new business that I saw my big business vision.
I could see want I wanted clearly:
A business that helped people and gave me space to write.
One that provided financial freedom, but also creative fulfilment.
One that worked for me, not just the other way around.
This was the road I started down, but it would be another 5 years before I made it a real reality. Along the way, I’d taken a few wrong turns, dead ends, and plenty of setbacks, as well as experiencing a fair share of false summits.
The Doing Took Over
You know how it goes. When you start anything new, there is so much to do, especially in a business. The endless to-do lists, client calls, emails and marketing, all the “urgent” fires that needed putting out. Bills need paying and things need do doing.
Day after day, I was so busy doing that I forgot why I was doing it all. I got caught up in the doing.
I kept saying yes to things I thought would lead me to the vision of my business. One that had financial freedom. Can you write LinkedIn profiles? Of course. Write content for websites? No problem. Design a brochure? When do you need it?
A lifetime of being a jack of all trades meant I could do a lot, and now it was becoming a negative, as I said yes after yes after yes to things I thought would help me get to where I wanted to go.
But I’d forgotten a crucial aspect when saying yes to everything. Those yeses take up space, and there is only so much one person can take and still be sane at the same time.
The vision I once held tightly became background noise, pushed aside by the rigors and demands of running a business.
And it left me feeling, well, disconnected, not just from my dream, but myself too
When the Dream Feels Out of Reach
One morning, after yet another late night finishing work I didn’t love, I found myself doom-scrolling to try and switch off. My feed was showing me all the with things I wanted. Everyone else seemed to be “living the dream”, launching new products, writing books, travelling, growing.
I was in the opposite place. I felt the green-eyed monster of envy swell up inside, alongside longing and regret, together with the question I’d been ignoring.
What happened to my dream?
It wasn’t gone completely, but I had abandoned it, little by little, all in the name of progress.
I’d gotten so caught up in survival mode that I forgot why I was doing any of it. It was like being on a treadmill, running at 10mph. I was moving fast but actually going nowhere.
How I Reclaimed My Dream
Reclaiming my dream wasn’t about adding more to my plate. It wasn’t another checklist, marketing plan or strategy session. It was about getting honest about what I wanted, and what I didn’t.
It was about pausing, breathing and remembering, and then slowly letting things I didn’t need go, like finding a statue hidden in a slab of marble. Each chip, each piece that was let go of my business revealed a stronger and clearer one beneath.
It was a process of asking hard questions and honestly listening to the answers, whatever they may be. Many of the questions and prompts here inside The Quiet Reset, I used on myself to get back to my dream.
Questions like:
What was my original vision and dream for my business?
What am I doing that no longer feels aligned?
What do I really want to build — and why?
The same kind of reset I now guide others through.
Step by step, I stripped away what wasn’t working. I stopped saying yes to things that drained me, or the things I didn’t really want to do. I created more space so that things could grow, like my creativity, confidence, and courage.
It wasn’t like I was starting again from scratch, I was resetting. I was stripping away the things that didn’t work so I could make space for the things that did.
This is what it means to reclaim your dream, or vision for your business. It’s curating the things that work and light you up, that craft the path that will lead you to the vision for your business, rather than a path that’s leading to the wrong destination.
Your Dream Is Still There
If your big vision feels lost beneath the noise of daily doing, you’re not alone. It happens to the best of us. There is good news too, in that your dream hasn’t disappeared, but it’s just waiting for you to remember it again.
Start small. Find moments to reconnect with what lights you up, what brings you joy, and what feels right. Slow down enough to listen to your inner voice that’s whisper what you really want, and need.
Because that dream for your business and the life you want aren’t separate.They’re one and the same. And it’s never too late to begin building both.
Onwards and Upwards
- Becky :)
