If you can imagine it, you can be it

If you can imagine it, you can be it.

You may have seen this quote, or ones like it, bandied about in motivational books and videos. But is it true? Can you really be and do anything that you can imagine?

Well, yes and no.

It depends.

I can imagine myself as an astronaut in a space ship making my way to the international space station – but that thought isn’t natural to me. There is absolutely nothing in me that connects me to that thought. I don’t feel any truth associated with that thought.

Statements such as “if you imagine it, you can be it” depend on how natural that imagined thought is to you.

Think of basketball players. They are all super-tall, right? I think the average height for basketball players is around 6’ 7”. You wouldn’t think it natural for someone who is under 5’ 10” to ever contemplate being an NBA player. Yet it happens. Keith Jennings – 5’7”; Charlie Chris – 5’8”; and Earl Boykins – 5’5” – just to name three.

I bet you can picture just what these guys would have heard from the people around them when they first started talking about wanting to be NBA players. Discouragement, ridicule, and even ‘logical’ reasons as to why that was impossible.

But in their minds, not only was it possible, it was true. They were connected with their dream and no amount of ‘logic’ would keep them from pursuing their dreams.

The same is true for each of us. When we carry within ourselves a dream that lights us up, makes us feel alive, and is so real in our thoughts and emotions, then it is something we must pursue. And oftentimes, we pursue these dreams whilst being bombarded with discouragement, ridicule and all the most logical reasons in the world as to why we shouldn’t.

This isn’t about wishing for a different life. It isn’t about hoping for a different life. It’s about knowing, deep inside that there is a dream life to be lived.

If that seed has been planted deep within you, it’s time to water it, nurture it, protect it, and let it grow.