Welcome to Kiki Dreams Big!
What is Kiki Dreams Big?
Everybody can dream big and embrace the happiness and joy our world has to offer. I'm Kiki, and this is my blog - a personal record of my thoughts and feelings as I work towards building a more fulfilling life by trying new things, focusing on what brings me happiness, and connecting with people who can lead me in the right direction. I don't know what I want, but I have a vision that now is the time to start looking, and writing is how I figure it out. "Kiki Dreams Big" is a journey of self-discovery.
I have always struggled to answer the question, "What is your dream?" - most typically in the form of "What is your dream job?". As a child, I was asked the inevitable question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?". I think most of us can connect with this question in some way, whether you had your answer immediately or you are still trying to figure it out. What I didn't appreciate is that… you can have multiple dreams! I genuinely feel like I had my first dream just weeks ago, at 32 - I dreamed of becoming a writer.
I used to run a personal blog to share my hobbies, thoughts, and feelings during a time when I was away from family and friends for work. That experience spurred me towards launching this new blog to document my self-discovery journey.
My Inspiration
I was on a cruise in February, a couple of days in, watching a drag queen doing her show and thinking to myself - "This is amazing! Your job is to act a buffoon on a cruise ship in the Caribbean, and you are having so much fun! This is the kind of joy I want in my life". This show was the keystone for my dream because just then, I realised - hey, I can find this joy in writing! I've been writing for years and finding joy in exploring my ideas, but not realising that it is a creative outlet I have yet to fully explore. If I push it a bit further, I can tease out all of my ideas and find something that makes a difference in my life. I have so much of my experience documented in journals, notes apps, photos, voice recordings, videos, and countless other media - it all came together in my dream that this is how I find my next thing.
I have so many ideas and thoughts in my mind. Writing them down feels like the only way to make sense of the world. A dream is realising all the clues suddenly fall into place, and you can visualize how to get there. This is what a dream means for me. A writer is what I am, but living a life of happiness is what I want to do!
My Journey So Far
It was perhaps the universe pushing me to leave my job last summer. This came after many years of asking myself, "Is this what I want for the next 30/40 years?". I had everything I could have wished for in the life I thought I wanted - a successful career right out of university, with enough money to be more than comfortable. Is that all I want from my time? To slave away, day to day until I retire, when I can finally use my pension and free time to do all of the things I want to. That wasn't good enough for me... But I didn't know what else I could do.
So I took time for myself to figure that out. Leaving my job was very opportune as I was moving home, having been living in another country for 2 years. I could comfortably take 6 months off, and then decide what to do next. So, I spent 6 months enjoying my time off - really, it was the first time in my life I had nothing to do. From school to university to work, I was always on the go, looking forward to the next thing. But now, with nothing on the horizon, I had time to explore myself, and focus on where I can find happiness. It took a lot of time to break away from the burnout that comes from working a corporate job, and dealing with all of the unseen stressors.
I've always been a very cerebral person - to my detriment a lot of time. I oftentimes didn't try something new because I would fear I would get things wrong, look like a fool, or not enjoy it. Over the years I struggled with wanting everything to be perfect, and feeling anxiety when things weren't. So much of that was because of the expectations I took on from my environment. I took it to heart. It took many years of coping with that mindset to train myself to think differently. Thankfully, being able to step away from work changed my thinking so much faster. I no longer had a responsibility to get up every day and go into an office to join meetings about nothing. I was living a different life, and I was able to find so much joy in the things that are important to me - my marriage, my family, my friends, my hobbies... But most importantly, myself. But what next?
I have always been a big believer in "everything happens for a reason". I don't quite know where I got that ideology from - perhaps it was from my mother. I found comfort in those words because it meant that if I failed at something, it was because I wasn't ready yet. For what, I don't know. It seemed like the journey I had to take, and just trust that the universe would lead me in the right direction.
Why Now?
One such hint from the universe came to me in December 2024 as the new year loomed, and I reflected on the final 6 months of 2024. I couldn't quite explain what I had achieved in that time other than knowing I needed the time off to decompress and reexamine what was important to me. I had planned to post on Instagram about my year in review; one post covering January to June, and one covering July to December. I realised that the latter half of my year didn't feel as successful. Not because I wasn't working, but because I had fallen into old habits when I returned home. This spurred me to kick-start a new discipline for 2025 - to explore aspects of my life that I wanted to improve, and try new things I could perhaps find joy in. I won't linger on the details of the past 3 months because now is not yet the time. However, I will say that it led me to looking into the practice of manifestation, and a whole new world of possibilities opened up to me.
Manifestation is the practice of bringing your aspirations (or dreams) into reality through your thoughts and energy. The timing was impeccable! I realised that so many little parts of my life over the past 9 months led me to this moment. I trusted in those small nuggets of joy in everyday life. I believed in putting my own happiness first. I started to see there was more to life, and that I had unknowingly been practicing manifestation techniques over the years. This practice is my new guiding star for "Kiki Dreams Big"!
What Dreaming Big Means to Me
As I round out the end of my first post, I wanted to briefly touch on where the idea of dreaming big came from. Honestly, I'm not even sure where to start! Dreaming big has been something I've always done. Up to now, I haven't let those big dreams take over. I've focused on those which seemed achievable and expected of me. I can't say I regret any of my choices over the years - it's just that now I really appreciate life a lot more. I want those big dreams to become a big reality for me and my loved ones.
They say that good things take time but great things happen all at once. I believe that life is a mix of both - you control the good things, and the universe sends you the great things. The idea of "dreaming big" really lends itself to manifestation, and that's how I decided the name for my blog. If you are going to dream about something, why would you dream small? Shoot for the stars, and you might reach the moon. So that's what I'm doing!
I want all of you dreamers to join me on this adventure, and see where it takes us!
Kiki <3
