This first post is by me, Catherine, founder of Becoming the Elders – it’s a condensed version of how I came to start the movement and the importance of believing in your dream and sticking to it throughout anything that you may find yourself going through in life.

For many years, since I was tiny, I’ve dreamed of changing the world. I didn’t know exactly how, I had aimed myself at environmental work but life swept me up and I was married just after attending university and had two children very soon after that. After 6 years our marriage had broken down and I found myself and the kids living in a hostel.

This was a lot in a few short years and my dreams of changing the world had vastly diminished as I was too busy dealing with every day living. When I realised that even I, with a burning desire to change the world, couldn’t do anything because my life was in turmoil around me, my focus turned to wanting to do something to help people, especially other women, to feel better within themselves and in that way I felt the world would change for the better.

For me that path has led to where I am now….through raising my family, training as a coach, more house moves than I’d have liked, being made redundant to finally being settled with my dream garden and getting chickens and finally now to creating Becoming the Elders.

It’s funny but it’s only in the looking back that I can see how I got here. The dream of changing the world is still alive, but I’ve learned that it doesn’t happen in grand gestures but in small acts of love, in choosing differently, in daring to believe your life itself can be part of the change.

“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi

Following your dreams isn’t about having the perfect plan or always knowing the next step. It’s about listing to that quiet voice inside that says “there is more to life than this”. It’s about taking one step, then another, even when the path seems uncertain.

So if you are carrying a dream, no matter how small or unimportant it may seem, please hold onto it. Nurture it like a seed, we need more people doing the things that make their hearts happy, that’s what changes the world. Your dream matters, you matter and the world needs what you dream.

What is your dream? No matter how small or insignificant you think it is, I’d love to hear it. Do share in the comments section below. (Slightly off topic…do you remember when the internet was a friendly place, lets make it nice again).