Your Forgotten Superpower
A few years ago, in one of the peer groups I facilitate, one of the members challenged me to push them to grow. (Just think about that for a minute. How embarrassing! Nobody must explain to an infant how to grow, and, for example, they master the art of learning to speak a foreign language, because whatever their native tongue might be, it is, for them, a foreign language. Indeed, one of my grandchildren has a mother who speaks English and a father who speaks French, and he is learning both of those at the same time. And does he scowl, complain, whine about it? No, he is always smiling and happy. So, if you think about it for a moment, that these highly successful peer group members were asking for help in how to grow as human beings is really kind of sad.)
As adults, one of the things we must address if we are to proactively grow is some sort of target. Grow how, toward what end? It’s hard to hit a target if you don’t know what you are aiming at. So, I gave them an exercise that I first experienced back in the 1980s when my wife and I attended a program in Dallas, Texas, presented by the Zig Ziglar Corporation called “Born to Win.” I asked the group members to each make a list of anything they thought they might want to ever be, do, or have. I was emphatic that they were not to judge an idea that popped into their head and leave it off the list. If it appeared in their awareness, they were to write it down. I pointed out that on my list (from back in the 1980s), I had an item of eating a healthier diet, and I had another item of eating a box of pretzels every day. Both were not going to happen, but at the initial stage of the process, both belonged to the list. The idea was to get everything out of their heads and onto paper. The next step was going to be to then give them a process of holistically prioritizing and processing the list, with an end goal of giving them specific targets to aim at.
After giving them the instructions, I set them to write and gave them 20 minutes to start their lists. I walked around the room a bit, looking over their shoulders as they worked.
And I was APPALLED at what I saw. Their lists REEKED of practicality. I did not read every word or even necessarily look at each person’s list beyond maybe a glance, but I didn’t see anything that made me go “Wow, what a great idea!” Even the “visionaries” in the group demonstrated zero “vision” for what their life might become. This is when I realized that all these extraordinarily successful people had all lost their most important superpower.
Their lists were full of things to do or have, tangible things. But growth is about becoming something more than you are now, and I don’t recall seeing anything on anyone’s list about the “be” of be, do, or have. Simply put…
They had forgotten how to dream. The ability to dream is your superpower.
I believe that all humans aspire to become more. Watching my grandchildren, nobody must explain to them how to dream. They play “make-believe” all the time. It is wired into them.
And it was wired into you.
I think of dreaming (eyes open or closed, during sleep or while awake) as the vehicle through which both your subconscious mind and the Divine present you with their wisdom, with their goals (or simply next steps) for you. And the ideas which are presented, either literally or in symbolic form, always have value. Many times, the dreams we experience are dismissed as not being practical. They may seem unattainable, have bad timing, or otherwise don’t fit into our “lack of a target to aim at” life. Why? Because they are expecting us to become something new. It is remarkable to me how many people do not understand that you cannot grow and stay the same!
Somewhere along the way, we stopped seeing dreaming as wisdom and started seeing it as indulgence. We started treating imagination like a reckless teenager that needed to be disciplined, when it was our greatest teacher. We were taught to distrust the very thing that once made us come alive. We learned to confuse “being responsible” with “being reasonable.” And the price of that confusion is enormous. Dreaming is not childish. It’s where your next level comes from, whispering to you even before you’re ready to hear it. This erosion, this death of dreaming, doesn’t happen in a moment. It is the result of hundreds of tiny compromises. Each time you choose safe and easy over alive, our connection to dreaming fades a little more, and then one day you realize that your imagination has quietly gone silent.
When was the last time you let yourself imagine something impossible? Not something you could plan or afford, but something that would force you to become a bigger version of yourself. Most people can’t remember. That’s not a lack of imagination. That’s fear. Each time you choose safe over alive, your connection to dreaming fades a little more. Until one day you wake up, look around, and realize your imagination has gone quiet. If that describes you, don’t panic. It’s not gone — it’s buried. It’s waiting for permission to return.
You want a “next step?” Try this: instead of setting goals, start listening to whispers. What idea, vision, or crazy possibility has been nudging at you, but you’ve dismissed it as impractical or silly? That’s your superpower trying to wake you up.
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This issue was originally published by Greg Hayne on Substack.