How I Made My Dreams Come True

by Shannon Lintott

I know that you probably read the title of this article either with rolling eyes or with a heavy heart. Believe me when I tell you that I am equally as guilty when it comes to assuming that reading about someone who is living their dream makes me either very inspired or heavily depressed. So let me explain my story of how I began to turn my dreams into goals and those goals into reality.

I grew up in a small town. From a very early age I knew that I loved two things very deeply: learning about the world and art.

While some of my elementary and high school teachers were very inspirational and encouraged me to find out what I wanted to be, there was not a lot of room to dream big where I grew up. They pushed trades as that was where the jobs were. Any museum, theatre, cinema or cafe was a 30 minute drive away. My dream from age 8 to about 18 was to escape my small town and move to a city where I could  find a job doing something that I loved.

I achieved this by the age of 25 (I’m a stubborn and impatient person). I was also able to travel to a few different countries around the world and get articles published online – both large passions of mine that I mistook for hobbies that quickly became my focus after graduation.

I had my own apartment and made enough money to pay off my student loan. I was working in my field and getting my career going. I was writing in my free time and travelling when I could. This was the dream, right?

I started to become depressed in the summer of 2012. I was struggling to find happiness in my job. My small basement apartment seemed to suck the life out of me. Toronto stopped being beautiful and interesting and started to feel drab and unfriendly.

My boyfriend was very supportive but when we would go out I would drink too much and take my frustration out on him through angry tears until I finally fell asleep. Luckily he is a patient and supportive man who believed in me when I couldn’t (and still does).

One night I looked back through my personal journal, trying to find the month, day or hour when I started to slip into this person I had become. I flipped the page and saw a list (I love lists). At the top it said,

“If I could do anything right now – if money, relationships, career and expectations were not an issue – what would I do?”

Five things were written underneath, the first of which was “Move to Scotland”.

My heart leaped. In a flash I knew that I could make this dream my new goal and see what happened.

Eight months later and three months into my visa in Scotland, I am the person that I had been pretending I wasn’t. I work part time at a hostel and work part time at a cafe. Both of these have nothing to do with my BFA in Theatre Production but both of them make me happier than I have been in years.

I have already travelled all over Scotland and have been to Iceland (go if you can, it’s surreal). I am heading to Italy in a week and maybe Germany in July. I am sleeping well. Eating well. Meeting new people every day that have become quick friends and more importantly wake up every day feeling excited for another day.

I would have never thought that I would be able to achieve this but with the help of friends and family, and just by accepting that I could do it, I have. It took me 7 years to realize this and sadly, until you’re ready, you won’t believe that it can be that easy either.

Well, by easy I mean stressful and scary as all hell. I quit my job and  gave away all of my possessions except for some clothes and a computer that I fit into a 40 litre backpack. As my storage locker emptied I realized that the kitchen table was only ever just a table. The couch was a couch. My big screen TV was just a TV and that none of them actually brought me happiness – just the image of happiness that I was still holding onto from high school.

Another magical thing about living your dream is that once you do, those other dreams that seemed like they would never come to fruition suddenly feel achievable. I am now 3/4 done a book that I have been trying to write for as long as I can remember. It seems a lot easier than giving my entire life away: leaving your supportive boyfriend behind along with your friends and family and a career that you had been building for 7 years…

What’s next for me? Who knows. For the first time in my life I am not planning ahead. I am living in the present. All I have is me and my backpack and a journal and I finally understand that to be really happy, you need little else.

You just need to take that first step and once you do each steps becomes easier until you’re running into your future – head first into your dreams.

Shannon Lintott currently resides in Edinburgh, Scotland working in a hostel and a vegetarian cafe. She spends her free time reading, writing and travelling as much as possible. Check out her travel blog at travellingcanuk.blogspot.com and her movie review blog I Like (good) Movies and follow her on Twitter.