Are you a Big Wild Dreamer, or a Tomorrow Thinker?

Big Wild Dreams are the fruit of your future. They are the visions of your greatest contribution, belief in the best version of yourself and the world so far. Big Wild Dreams get made real via planned and purpose-full actualisation, setting a target and carefully taking aim.

A Big Wild Dream made real is an expression of your Crafted Self

Tomorrow Thinking is the hopes for the future that keep you locked into a loop of never dealing with your actual reality. Tomorrow Thinking happens when you're not living your truth, and you're not in integrity with how things are being, so you don't want to create plans that fit into the current reality of your situation. When your life isn't the way you want it to be, Tomorrow Thinking takes over. We don't like to be present with the Self who's living a falsehood. If we've already decided we're not good enough, smart enough, rich enough, lovable enough... it can seem better to make plans that allow a Tomorrow version of Self to take the place of reality.That's not Self Crafting. It's Self bull-shitting.And once you get locked in the Tomorrow Thinking loop, it can be difficult to get off the ferris wheel! Telling yourself you're going to become the imaginary version of Self, without doing the Craft work of Now, provides positive feedback to feel better. Of course, it's not real, and it's not going to hold. But it makes you feel good for the day, while you make all the bull-shit story about what you're going to do, knowing full well that you won't really do it, because facing your reality is simply too hard. While you keep having unrealistic imaginings, the Tomorrow Thinking allows you to have a positive emotion about yourself for a brief moment.Tomorrow Thinking gives you an artificial high – a dopamine hit – a story of how things could be, without developing the internal fortitude to the person you'd actually make a difference as, if you brought that Self to the world. Tomorrow Thinking allows you to have a false pride in an imagined future, without Crafting anything to taking pride in real actions.This is important information if you're using the Lunation Annual Planner to make your Big Wild Dreams real. The LAP is designed to support you entirely in making as many BWD real as you choose to prioritise. As one user said “it's a magick book” because you are encouraged to plan and achieve, regardless of what your BWDs are.

The Lunation Annual Planner is a written record of your hopes and dreams

Using your Lunation Annual Planner is really helpful if you're doing your Self Work, choosing through awareness and living the life you desire. BUT it can also be a written record of your bullshit : all the times you collected the dopamine of Tomorrow Thinking in order to not live in reality, only to be reminded next time you open the pages that you didn't live up to the story you'd created for yourself.

You could be a drop out...

Over the years, I've noticed a number of people start out, but drop off using the LAP after a few months, only to come back again the following year with 'more will power.' Will power is not a tool of Self Crafting. If you're not filling your LAP pages with your BWD, it's because you're bull shitting yourself with Tomorrow Thinking, and no amount of will power is going to help. The work of Self Crafting is authenticity and integrity with yourself.Authenticity is not perfection. There's crunchy edges. And uncomfortable bits. Sometimes there's pimples and unplucked eyebrows and stains on your clothes... Self Crafting is witnessing all of those in yourself, and choosing to prioritise a different way if you really desire it... Making a plan is part of prioritising. Marking the steps, and taking one moment at a time. You won't be a super model before you've bothered to scrub the stain, get your tweezers out and wash your face...

Self Crafting doesn't have a goal.

There's nowhere specific you have to get to. Everyday you get to be the most authentic version of You, as you are. That's the mark on the target. Every time you sling an arrow, and you take a shot of real life, without excuses, you get a little closer to the life you desire, the BWD making real.What's ironic of course is that your Tomorrow Thinking actually prevents you from achieving and building something real. When you drug yourself with the perfectionist ideal, you are making real life impossible to achieve. Tomorrow Thinking anesthetises you to a life worth living, because you've been feeding yourself bullshit for so long, that anything less seems pathetic.READ THIS :

Your unrealistic plans are what's stopping you from being the best version of your Self so far.

Tomorrow Thinking may feel good in the moment but the result is that you lose integrity with yourself. Every time you open that LAP and see the plans that weren't based in reality, you're reminded of how you really are not enough. Who are you to think big? You tell yourself that you've let yourself down, you can't get anywhere and you're just not like the other people in the world (those amazing, inspired, perfect people) who seem to achieve all their dreams....

How do some people get so very productive using their LAP, and others don't?

There's an important distinction between Big Wild Dreams and Tomorrow Thinking, and here's how to work it out.

1. Dream Big
2. Believe
3. Awareness
4. Plan

Dreaming Big

Both BWD and TT are made of big dreams. These dreams can be so very big that they appear totally impossible from where you're standing. That's ok! Impossible is simply the choice that 'I'm Possible." Big Dreams are doable, provided you are Crafting from the reality you're in AND you can open to the awareness of the future. 

Believing in your Self

You absolutely must believe in the person you're becoming. Everything that has ever been made real started with a dream. A vision is an imagining that has belief attached to it. Dreams and Belief are the magick potion to make Visions real.Belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, even without proof.The knowing that you can create the reality you desire can be flighty, because some of us have had a lifetime of patterns that taught us to doubt our self, mistrust others and subscribe to an idea that we are not enough. Belief is an element of Crating the Self, where you chose to know. Belief is something one accepts as true or real; and it's allowed to be an opinion. You don't need 3 peer reviewed studies to confirm your belief in yourself. You simply choose You.Ask yourself, do I believe I can make this real? Do I believe I have what it takes? If I break this down into chunks of action, do I believe I will be able to hit the first target in a chosen timeframe? And if I fail, will I keep going, or will I have to start all over from scratch again?Crafting your Big Wild Dreams is the act of working on your belief every single day. Some days are harder than others. Some days you could feel as though all is lost.Belief is the choice to never abandon yourself, no matter how tough things get. Decide that you will never give up on yourself. Wherever you go, there you are, so be ALL there, crunchy bits, pains and hopes smooshed together. Belief is a practice of nuance that can be affected by the season, or your own rhythms and everything that's going on in your life. Belief is not always easy, and it is work. Choose to be the person you need to hear the encouraging words from. 

Awareness

Noticing the sensations and thoughts that arise when you're crafting your Vision is a sure way to identify a distinction between BWD and TT.When you're visioning a Big Wild Dream, you will feel excited and also slightly nauseous. There's a lightness of excitement along with being “terrified” (which is the excitement of the hunt, in disguise) because it's real and will probably take some hard work.When you're engaging in Tomorrow Thinking, it's a different sense. TT feels good in the sense that you get relief from your negative self-talk. There's a story about being worthwhile and enough, and it makes you feel better than before.If you are committed to a Vision, and you are aiming at believing it, you likely will feel super nervous, doubtful and a bit afraid and even confused. Fear happens when we're actually committed to do something that might fail. The huntress feels nervous when she heads out, because a lot is riding on the outcome of her hunt.Ask yourself, what is my sense of this plan? Do I feel positive or negative? If it doesn't work out exactly as I'm visioning now, will I be okay to make changes, or will I have to give up entirely?If you simply feel good about the future, you've entered into fantasy land.Sometimes, TT will give you a heavy sense, an undercurrent of negative emotion, that isn't really fear (because you're not really doing anything). This sense is more like the resignation of already knowing you're not going to do it – because it's the pattern you've previously created for yourself. You know, underneath, based on previous history, that you're not really going to do it. You're not in integrity with yourself, and that feels gross because you're living a falsehood. If you sense this heaviness, it's a good sign that you're using TT again. 

Plan

Your plan is the sizeable targets you are going to reach, one step at a time, in order to make your vision real. We have to plan out what we're going to do to get there. But you don't need to know every tiny detail; just a few of the first steps. Notice, in the LAP, (and you can also find it in the Daily Rhythm Planning Page) at each New Moon you are given a working for the “3 steps that you could use to bring your desire to fruition.” Each day you're asked to prioritise 3 Things that will “create the most space for you, and create the most ease in your life.”Identifying 3 Things each day, might seem small on the day, but when you look back over a month, you will have responded to 90 items that brought you closer to your Vision.When you're deep in TT, you're much more likely to be thinking only about the end result. That's the difference between a goal and a target. A goal has one evolution. You get the goal, or you don't. A target is a constantly available mark where you can reset, refocus and aim again.So if you're only thinking of the goal (your ideal weight, your bank account, your glam wardrobe..) you will not be looking at the craftable steps to make your vision real, one shot at a time. It's easy to get caught up in the perfectionist goal, but it means you're not living in reality of what you can truly actualise.The plan that only focuses on a goal, requires 100% success. The plan that focuses on the overall vision, and uses targets to get there, allows for stumbles and falls, because you can always get back up again, re-aim and fire.Perhaps the most important distinction between BWD and TT is your willingness to fail. If you're getting validation out of your imaginary dreams, failure will feel like death. But if your validation comes from outside of the Vision, if you're working from the place of integrity and authenticity for a better world, you will be willing to take a stumble on the way to the life you truly desire.Of course, this is intertwined with your Self Crafted Belief work, aka, your personal growth. If you identify your personal value though external sources, like how many friends you have, or how cool your car is, it's likely that you're not willing to fail (what will people think?)BWDs will bring failures that lead you to a better version of what you've already imagined. Failures create possibility because they encourage choice. You're willing to shoot, again and again, until you get there. .If you're not willing to plan strategically and tactically, and then get up again and again, you're probably using Tomorrow Thinking. Everything will be better tomorrow... when you won't fail, because everything will be perfect.... so you don't start the plan... because you don't want to fail...

Tomorrow Thinking is fueled by the fear of failure becoming real.

Big Wild Dreams are fueled by the willingness to fail, in order to make it real.

Self Crafted You

If you've spent most of your time in the loop of TT, it takes considered attention to act on your Big Wild Dreams (not will power!). Switching from bullshitting yourself to real action requires re-programming your patterns. You're currently out of integrity with yourself. Now you know. Hopefully, this article has helped you identify where you've been bullshitting yourself, and why it's been so hard to make your dreams real.Now you get to change it. You get to develop a realationship with your dreams that allows you to rely on yourself! You get to learn to believe what you say, what you plan and what you do. You get to believe in You!Remember to start small. Those daily “3 Things” in your Lunation Annual Planner are not supposed to be 1. Buy a house 2. Sew a dress 3. Run a marathon. Start with something more like 1. Get the newspaper to look at houses 2. Choose fabric 3. Go for a run.WARNING – it's not going to feel as good as your regular TT!You might even experience withdrawals. You've probably been doing TT for a long time. You'll have to find a different way to get your easy dopamine fix now. Watch out for other behaviours that sneak in (endlessly scrolling Instagram, finishing the packet of TimTams, bingeing the entire 7 seasons of GOT in one weekend), turning you toward cheap hits and eventually letting you slide back to the TT of old. You've got this. I believe in you!Practicing the small steps, setting targets that are achievable and can fit into your life, is a daily work. In other words, productivity is a practice. And when you realise that this work has a direct relationship with your personal growth, perhaps it will be clear that the work of productivity is also a spiritual practice. How you plan your dreams is the work of Self Crafting the best version of your life. And you will only actualise your dreams, once you get a hold on planning your day.Now, let's get something straight. Productivity and doing is important in making visions real. But more important is how you feel about your Self though all of it. Remember, your belief in you is the magick ingredient, mixed with dreams to actualise a Vision. Making plans based on a perfect that will never exist, is a sure way to continue to feel shit about yourself.So choose you. _______________________________________Get support in your Self Crafting journey, re-pattern your life AND make your Big Wild Dreams real by working therapeutically with Hollie.If you'd like more info about meeting your target mark, check out the True Arrow short course for creating habits by creating small, achievable targets that are actually doable.