It is very possible that, at some point, your dream will dissolve and you will be left searching for comfort. Life doesn’t always go according to plan; Accidents happen, companies go bankrupt, entire economies go into recession. At other times it is more prosaic realizations. When I recently turned 40, I finally accepted that my dream of playing top level soccer had to end! Often the inexorable passage of time wears down our paper-thin ambitions to the point of shredding them. How should we deal with this state of affairs? There are five options:

• Approach him differently
• hold on to sleep
• leave him
• rework the dream
• replace the dream

First, check if the dream is really impossible. It may simply be that your approach to achieving the dream is flawed. Can you set new goals, try something different, use new ways of working? Remember that if you keep doing the same things over and over again but expect different results, you are defining insanity by your actions. It may also be that you ‘just’ need to hold on to the dream more and work harder to achieve your success. The story goes that in the wake of the Great Depression, Conrad Hilton was watching his hotel chain collapse: his dream was dissolving and he was facing bankruptcy. However, he didn’t despair, but apparently took a photo of the Waldorf Astoria and posted it on his desk where he could get inspiration every day. Less than twenty years later, he bought the Waldorf, the dream did not die!

Holding on to a dream once it has become completely impossible is not the smart choice. However, this does not stop people from doing it. It tends to leave them in a place where they become bitter and unhappy, focusing on something/someone that prevented them from achieving their dream. They become little people because of it.

Giving up the dream seems like the logical way to go, but let’s not rush it. Perhaps the dream is now completely impossible to achieve, in which case walk away. ‘Letting go’ will not necessarily be easy and may even involve a grieving-like period, especially if the dream is something that has been around for many years or was about to come to fruition. Allow time to accept the change, deliberately put it behind you and move on to something new.

However, it may be that the dream is changeable. Dig a little deeper into what you really wanted to happen; what motivated him to pursue the dream, how he expected it to sound or look, what it would have felt like to complete it. Can any of them still be achieved in a different way? What did you want from wanting to play football? Maybe the adulation of the crowd, the buzz of acting, possibly being known to be highly skilled at something or something. Take time to reflect and see how part of the dream can be realized in a modified version. Keep the passion alive and keep going. (Just for the record, I wanted to be recognized as someone highly skilled and on top of their game; I’ve now transferred that to other aspects of my work.)

Finally, you have the option to replace sleep. In another article I wrote about how to choose between different ideas. Once the first dream is dead and buried, it’s time to go back to that list and choose something different. You may be able to take modified aspects of the previous dream, as noted above, but if not, then start over from the beginning and turn your latest idea into a new set of goals for the future.

Regardless of what you decide to do, make sure that when it starts to feel a bit shaky that you react, check, and move on. Don’t hide your head in the sand because all your dreams will be buried there with you.