How to tell if your dream is truly yours (or if it’s someone else’s)

Life coach Kate Kilby offers tips for assessing whether the goals you’re pursuing are true to yourself

Did you get the house/promotion/paycheck you thought you wanted, only to find it didn’t feel as good as you hoped? Sometimes, we can spend years working towards dreams we named so long ago that we forget to check if they are even ours.

Much of our lives are channelled down a path, shaped by our education, our parents’ hopes, societal norms, and our cultural backdrop. But the influencing of our dreams can be more insidious than an overt career expectation from parents. ‘Dreams’ are also fed to us by the influencers we follow on Instagram, the stories we watch on TV and film, and the products we buy to solve problems we didn’t know we had.

The goal isn’t zero influence (that’s impossible). Almost nothing we want is formed in a vacuum. But how do you know if the dream you’re chasing, or sustaining, is one you created or collected? How do you tell the difference between your own dream being reflected back at you, and someone else’s dream being projected onto you?

Use the seven lenses below to expose whether the dream is truly yours, or someone else’s that you’re sleepwalking through.

1. How fulfilling is it?

Your dream: The ‘doing’ brings you satisfaction as much as the ticking off, and you feel fulfilment and pride at achievements along the way.

Someone else’s: More like a list of tick boxes that look good on paper but feel hollow inside. The promise of fulfilment feels like a pay-off that never quite arrives.

2. How much focus is on other people’s perceptions?

Your dream: Still yours, even if nobody is watching. Even if nobody claps.

Someone else’s: You find yourself presenting the highlight reel and managing positive perceptions, perhaps to curate your own belief in the dream as much as others’.

3. Ask“why do I want this?” until you’re 5 why-levels deep.

Your dream: Your core ‘why’ feels like part of who you are.

Someone else’s: You can’t explain a core ‘why’ that isn’t a ‘should’ or expectation, an inherited assumption, or you slip into vague ‘just because’ answers.

4. What is your energy telling you?

Your dream: Feels expansive, even when it’s hard. Your cup is topped up, allowing for energy levels that are more buoyant. You might still feel stretched or stressed sometimes, but you’re not chronically depleted.

Someone else’s: Feels constricting, even when successful. You are constantly drained, and dread is a familiar feeling in your belly. Some of the most exhausting goals to pursue are the ones that aren’t actually really yours.

5. Does it bring enjoyment?

Your dream: You find enjoyment in the ‘doing’ as much as the achieving. It’s the thing you keep coming back to, even if distractions pull you in other directions.

Someone else’s: The doing feels more like something to get through, before you can go and find enjoyment, escape or relief elsewhere.

6. What drives you when the going gets tough?

Your dream: The onus is on what you stand to gain. You see the hard and unglamorous bits as part of the journey, and a cost worth paying.

Someone else’s: The onus is on what you stand to lose. The dread of disappointing others is a greater driver than the desire to please yourself. Or you might relate to the term golden handcuffs, clinging to an idea of success primarily because you don’t want to lose the sweeteners that make it palatable.

7. How do you react when questioned?

Your dream: On the whole, you don’t care about others’ opinions on your dream. If they judge you, or don’t understand, you’d want it anyway. And if it’s outright threatened, you valiantly fight for it.

Someone else’s: If you find yourself over-justifying, or scrabbling for a multitude of rationalisations, you might be trying to convince yourself as much as the questioner.

Influence isn’t a dirty word. You can be inspired by a parent, shaped by a mentor, circumstances might divert your trajectory, or a whole new path might open up because of who you fell in love with. Life and relationships involve compromise and adaptability.

Perhaps it didn’t start as your dream, but if you’ve found it to satisfy and sustain you, does it matter? It’s less about whether someone else wanted or expected it for you, and more about whether you consciously decided to agree, and then made it your own. And if you didn’t, asking yourself how you might want to shape, merge, or rewrite your dreams from here on in will give you a better chance of living a more rested, contented, and vivid dream life.