Dear girls,

I want to write to you about something that sounds a little complicated, but it really is not : Recalibrating your dreams.
Most of us have goals and dreams in life and most of the time they seem really far away and really hard to achieve. First, it is important to actually write them down. To visualize it. To even for a moment feel what it feels like if that goal or dream was achieved. I think unless you actually fully think about it, you won’t know what you are working towards.

I have always loved being creative. I love meeting new people. I want to do something that involves those things. I can imagine myself at a party with lots of people and I am introduced to someone and they say, ‘this is Rashmi, she is an artist’.

So now you have visualized your dream,  it probably seems pretty ludicrous because really, who are you to have the audacity to dream this dream? The next thing is to take a step towards it. A small step.

I am going to sign up for a watercolour class. I am going to make some cards for my friends.

For every two steps you take, you will take a step backward. That is par for the course. Recalibrate. Change your path ever so slightly.

I really don’t want to be in this class with retired men and women. They are lovely but its not quite what I imagined. Maybe I can scan them in, and do something in the computer with them with them. That might be cool. Let me give it a try.

Keep forging ahead. Some steps you take will be in the completely wrong direction, take note of that because they will teach you about what you don’t want to do. It is just as important to know specifically what you do not want to do.

I love making cards for people with their photographs but how I wish some of those photographs were slightly better. I should learn about photography.

Be daring. Take a leap of faith. Take another leap of faith, and another.

I think I will ask my friends if I can photograph their children. I hope they don’t think that is totally crazy. How about if I photograph strangers and charge them money? Wouldn’t it be crazy if I could actually make a living doing this?

Learn learn learn along the way. Educate yourself. Ask questions. Ask more questions. Keep working your ass off, writing down your dreams and turning them into little and big goals, taking steps towards making them a reality, reassessing and recalibrating.Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.

It is easy to get overwhelmed by a DREAM. You have to break it down, take a step at a time and recalibrate.  I don’t even imagine a party where I am introduced as a photographer anymore, that is a given (crazy!)… now I imagine myself being interviewed by an editor and being commissioned to photograph an 8 page spread for a leading local magazine. Ludicrous? Crazy? Yes and yes. One step at a time, Recalibrating, but always moving forward.

xo, Mummy