Is there a time to stop encouraging someone who is pursuing an impossible dream?

Everyone wants to encourage friends, families, and the people they love in life to achieve their goals. In many cases they do achieve their personal ambitions and get their desired result in a situation. When it comes to dreams, that is where we come to a pause. Following and achieving a dream is very different from achieving a goal. A goal is a desire we act on and want to achieve in life, like being promoted at a job. A dream is very similar to a goal, but the difference is that it is a visual made up in our imagination that inspires us. In the book, Championship Behaviors: A Model for Competitive Excellence in Sports, Hugh McCutcheon mentions that a “dream can cause real emotional, physical, and mental damages.” These damages are from individuals who can’t attain their dreams. If a loved one told them the reality, which is that their dream really isn’t attainable, then they wouldn’t suffer from these damages. All in all, goals have deadlines, but a dream can stretch for a lifetime causing emotional, physical, and mental damages because dreams are very hard to attain in life. 

When becoming a second choice, it is time to give up on a dream. Dreams need very hard work in order to be accomplished. If people work so hard and still end up as a second option, they need to see the reality, which is that they are not able to achieve this impossible dream. Many people become second options in different scenarios. From being the second chair of an instrument to being a back-up for a professional athlete in football. There is always one person behind that is very good, but not good enough. Family members that love this individual need to give them a wake up call that they are not meant to pursue this dream. Even though blind luck can happen to a small percentage of individuals like Leanard Bernstien and Esa-Pekka Salonen, which according to Jane Piirto, in the The Piirto Pyramid of Talent Development, “were assistant conductors who got their big chance when the maestros under whom they worked had to miss a concert,” it is still a very small chance. This shows the understudy effect. This is when an actor learns another part in case anything goes wrong with the original person set to do the act. Most of the time the understudy only does their role, but there is a slight chance of them landing a huge role just because the main actor got hurt or just can’t make it. Becoming the main character in any situation could take years or even a lifetime, so why waste someone’s life when a loved one can tell them to move on from this unrealistic  dream. 

One man named George Gmelch wrote a book called,  Playing with Tigers: A Minor League Chronicle of the Sixties. This book talked about his dream and journey to become a major league baseball player. Gmelch stated, “Only 8 percent of Minor League players starting out in rookie ball ever make it to the big leagues.” This is a very low number and it’s only related to baseball. Everyone supported George and his dream throughout his childhood, but in the end it never came true. He made it to the minor leagues, played there for a couple years and then ended up leaving. He left his childhood dream of becoming a major league baseball player because he could not achieve it. He wasted years of his life trying to achieve this impossible goal that only 8% of the minor league players could get, and ended up writing books instead. If George Gmelch didn’t have the support he had growing up as a child to pursue this goal, he would have already been a successful author.

Many children, just like George Gmelch, have dreams of becoming a professional in a sport: baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc. Many of these children have support from their parents at such a young age, which leads them to keep reaching for these unattainable dreams. This creates a false belief for the children; the false belief would be that they are good enough to make it professional. These parents or other loved ones only want to help see their child grow, but when they encourage a dream that only a few percent of people actually achieve, it hinders the child’s mental state more. As this child grows up and keeps gaining support, it will boost their ego more and more. When the time comes to enter the professional stage of a sport, and they are denied, it will cause them to have a breakdown about if they were actually a good player as well as if his loved ones lied to him about his potential. All of this leads to psychological damages, which can make a personal question who they are; are they a great athlete, performer, musician? There are so many great athletes, musicians, etc. in the world, but only so many make it to the professional level. Before encouraging an impossible dream, think before you do. Do you want your child to mentally suffer in the long run?In conclusion, there is definitely a time to stop encouraging someone who is pursuing an impossible dream. The more we encourage a person to achieve this impossible dream, we push them more towards developing emotional, physical, or mental damage. This can be seen if a person feels anxiety or even depression when they cannot attain their dream. Being seen as a second option, rather than the first, can put mental hardships on a person’s brain, for they are wasting their life believing there is a small chance that their dream can be fulfilled. Telling a person to give up may sound horrible, but look on the brighter side. This is helping them to understand the reality that they are wasting their life waiting around when they could be finding something that actually benefits them now.

References

Gmelch, G. (2016). Playing with Tigers. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=reIsCwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT10&dq=%22minor+league+baseball%22+%22chasing+the+dream%22&ots=Dd8jgsIW-i&sig=xF_nuDvgFs_80J5cEQ6o08IU3Gs#v=onepage&q=%22minor%20league%20baseball%22%20%22chasing%20the%20dream%22&f=false

McCutcheon, H. (2022). Championship behaviors. Google Books. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=pONgEAAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PT3&dq=%22motivation%22+%22achievement%22+%22chasing+the+dream%22+%2Bathlete+%22psychological%22&ots=y8udN-f1N3&sig=TW3sKZKZdjYHWd-CajV0TQeZ1MI#v=onepage&q&f=false

Piirto, J. (2011). The Piirto Pyramid of Talent Development:. Jane Piirto PhD. https://janepiirto.com/?page_id=626