Change is part of life, and that means that sometimes you 
- Decide to change your plan
or
- life changes your plan for you.
Change, despite its ubiquity, is hard. If we have a plan or a dream, and we change it for some reason, we may feel that we’re giving up on our dream or that this modified plan isn’t legitimate. If change happens to us and we have to modify our dreams, we may feel a sense of loss, sadness, or even resentment toward whatever obstacle is in our way.
It is at moments like this when we need to regroup and reflect on our dream. We need to ask some questions like
- Is the original dream still doable?
- Do I even want the original dream anymore?
- Am I ok with not wanting the original dream? If not, why do I not feel ok?
- How do I feel about the dream changing if I don’t have control over things changing?
- What do I have the power to do to make myself more content with how this dream has changed?
People often have a dream that they don’t quite fulfill before they have children and boy, can children defer (at least temporarily) a dream. This is completely normal and expected, even if you don’t like the way your dream has gone offline.
It is important to remember, though, that deferring is not ending. Not even a little bit. It is a delay- not a death! The timeline might change, but the dream doesn’t have to. When life changes, sometimes your dreams do as well. Maybe getting that Ph.D. no longer seems as important at age 48 as it did at age 28. Does that make you a failure because you never got your Ph.D.? Of course, not.
The most important thing, whether you’ve changed your dream plan or whether life has changed it, is to keep moving forward even if it is in a new direction that you didn’t expect. Forward momentum at any pace is always progress.