Dream Big: How to Achieve the Dreams You Can't Afford

Hey there, my name is Chrystal Evans Hurst. If you're just now stumbling on this video or podcast, that's who you're listening to. You're either watching me on YouTube, on Facebook, or listening to me on the podcast. Wherever you are, be sure you subscribe, follow, all the things, like, all, you know, y'all have heard it a million times. Like, follow, subscribe. All the teenagers can say the thing. I'm still tongue-tied over it. The bottom line is, you know what to do. I just want you make sure you don't miss out on all the things. Now, here's the deal. I am here once a week where you can see me or listen to me. And then another time each week, you can hear me interview a guest on the podcast. So if you're watching me, you're missing out. That's the bottom line. You're missing out. Get ye to your favorite podcast player of choice and make sure you catch up on the great interviews that I host every week. Today, I want to jump into something that is super practical. I like being practical, but a lot of times you'll hear me in practical ways, inspiring you, motivating you, encouraging you to help you keep your head above water, keep a 30,000-foot view on your life, and pay attention. Today, I want to be a little bit more specific and practical because I realize the times that we're in. Y'all, the price of eggs, is stupid. It's just stupid. We went from gas being ignorant, now we're at eggs being ridiculous, and the things just keep rolling. Prices have soared. I got my tax bill for my house the other day. What in God's green earth is going on here? Um, we are currently in the Inner Circle membership. That's a group of women who want to hear more from me and get more specific tools that will help them to live life well. We are currently in a 90-day challenge. And I'm really excited because anytime you focus on things in your life, they have such a high capacity, a high potential to shift and change. Because focus is all that many of us need in order to move the needle in our life. But we have a sub-challenge going on right now, and it's a financial challenge. We're looking at our finances. Paying attention to our budgets, making the effort to spend less money. Somebody say, make the effort. Okay. But I also realized that it can be very, very frustrating to be working on pinching your pennies while you're trying to dream. So what I wanted to talk a little bit about today is what do you do with the dreams you don't have the money for. The things you really want to do, the hopes that you have for your life one day, but right now you're just trying to keep your lights on. I understand that. Been there, done that. I have gotten many a plenty a t-shirt, whether it was working my way out of debt, whether it was living single parent life, whether it was just trying to make sure the bare minimum was taken care of. In a single parent household and then in a married household, but one income. I understand, um, doing the best that you can just to keep things going and being frustrated that you can see what you want to do with your life. You can see what your desires are clearly. You know what you want to experience and you have no idea how you're going to pay for it. Well, I want you to know that so many people, if that's how you feel, either are where you are right now or were where you are right now and have a little bit of knowledge of what I want to tell you today. So the first important thing is, and I'm going to jump right into this, is that you got to write it down. What are your dreams? What do you want? What are you aiming for? When I was in my 20s, I wrote down on a sheet of paper the things that I wanted to see happen in my life. They were dreams of what I would do for a living, dreams of where I would live, dreams of how I would dress, dreams of how I would give, dreams of how I would change the world because of the places I was able to make an investment, vacations I would take. I mean, I thought about it because who doesn't? When you don't have the money to do what you want to do, that's actually a big part of the reason that you may stay frustrated or disappointed or depressed. You're constantly thinking about what you don't have. So instead of trying to fight the frustration that you don't have it, lean into it, write it down, make a point to say, I actually want this. Be honest and document it. Documenting your dreams, the things that you desire, however soul-oriented or situation-oriented they may be, whether they are temporal and you think that's frivolous but you want it, no matter, write it down. Whether it is timeless or temporal, if you want it, write it down. One of the worst things that you can do in your life is to pretend that you don't want things you really, really want. I do believe that you have to put your wants in correct order. They need to have their correct place. So often we understand that we don't need to compare ourselves to other people or even compare ourselves with our future selves so we won't be disappointed and frustrated. But the extreme of that is that you don't even acknowledge what you want. So I'm saying, write it down. Keep a list, keep a notebook, a composition journal, all the things, wherever you can come back to it, even a note on your phone, but not forget what it is that you really want. What are you dreaming of? Acknowledge it and write it down. When you write it down, it will help you to see it, it will help you to remember it, and it will help you when needed to focus on it. In my 20s, I wrote down what I wanted to do with my life. I had an 8-to-5 job. I did not enjoy it. I thought and dreamed about how one day, and I wrote it down, that I wanted to speak and write and teach women how to practically prepare for the rest of their lives so they could live life well. And guess what I do today? I could not have told you in my 20s how I would've gotten here. I could not have told you in my 30s how I could've gotten here. But slowly but surely, things started to align in my life, and the thing that I dreamt about and wrote down has become. Slowly but steadfast, it has become. And what's amazing is how close, how near, how identical what I'm doing now mirrors what I said I wanted. Write it down. I remember thinking when I was a single parent, one day I hope I get married, I hope I have more kids, and I hope when I do, I can stay home. Listen, sometimes you dream of things, and then when the dream comes to fruition, you may not like what the dream takes. I remember being frustrated being at home with small children, and, um, it was overwhelming, and I was tired, and we didn't have any money. But then I looked at what I wrote down and I remembered, this is what I prayed for. When you write it down, you not only frame your mind to focus on your dreams and to have a picture in your mind of where you want to go. When you write it down, when you get it and you realize that that new territory still requires work and energy, writing it down will help you to remember to be grateful that one day you actually inhabit the land you prayed you'd occupy one day. Not only that, but you write it down so that you can see progress in your life. Writing it down helps you to remember, it helps you to focus, and it helps you to stay grateful. Write it down. Don't pretend you don't want it. Dream out loud on paper. And if you wanna be really bold, share your dreams with a friend. Now, what else do you do when you can't afford your dreams? You make small deposits, literally and figuratively. I remember when I was, again, broke as all get out, and I was talking to my mom about how frustrated I was that I just didn't have I don't have any extra. And she said, yes, you do. You have extra. You always have extra. It may be a dollar, but it's extra. It may be $5, but it's extra. You may pass the drive-through on the way home and eat ravioli out of a can, but you have extra. Because extra is about a mentality. It's not about a number. And she reminded me of how when she and my dad started saving, they went to a financial planner because they knew that they needed to do something. And there was a financial planner that went to our church and whatever the numbers were on the board, on the whiteboard that he gave them that they needed to be saving, they had nowhere near that amount of money. He said, but what I can tell you is life changes. And when life changes, what you want to have is the habit of preparing for your dreams. So they did. They took the little, little extra that they made that was a huge sacrifice, and they set it aside. I think the number early on in their marriage was $25 a month. $25 a month when you're in your 30s does not get you to where you need to be. In retirement, but they started with what they had and they literally made a deposit in the direction of their dreams. Their dreams included being prepared for retirement. It included vacations. It included making memories with the children. It included having money to spend at Christmas time and improvements on their home furniture, but they didn't have it. So they made small deposits. In anticipation of it. You have extra. Now, I realize that there may be somebody who's watching this video who truly does not, but the majority of us who are watching, the large majority do. Think about the money that you spend on things that by the end of a 24-hour period, if you've eaten out, it's passed through your system. Think about the things that you're giving away this year because you wore them and then decided you didn't like them anymore. All of the clothes that are hanging in your closet and you wear 20% of those clothes. Or maybe it's the bag that you bought that you had to have 3 or 4 years ago, and now you haven't taken it out in a long time. You have extra. What about all the things that you have in your garage, the appliances that you bought that you never used? What about the furniture that you know good and well is overcrowding your living room. You have extra. Often extra is not about what we have in our pocket today. It's hard to see the extra then. Extra though is littered all over your home, in your garage, or in your purse with things that you spent money on when you thought you didn't have extra that now sit unused. Instead of spending the money on things that will in the future sit unused, why don't you just decide not to buy it and to make a deposit in the direction of your dreams? Does this require you to exercise discipline? 100%, because it is tough to put little money aside for a goal that you think is far, far away. We are constantly fighting against our impulse purchases, and Lord knows if I go to Target, listen, Target is going to tell me what Target thinks I need to have. And then there are all those things right as you go through the checkout line. Fifth Avenue, Madison Avenue is not about you making small deposits towards your dreams. It is all about you spending your dream money right now on things you will not be dreaming about later. $25 a month $5 a month, a dollar saved, a jar in your closet full of coins. Start somewhere. My husband and I, ever since we got married, we had 4 accounts. We have a couple more now, but we had 4. We had one for our household. We paid bills out of it, our mortgage, our electricity, our food. We each had a Mad Money account. We had both been single a long time, and the person who did premarital counseling for us said, you know what, even if you're giving yourself an allowance out of your household budget, have an account where you can swipe your own card and keep up with your own mad money. So if I run through McDonald's and get some fries, my husband may not know anything about that. Listen, but we had a fourth account called our special account. Some people refer to this kind of account as a freedom account. We would add up the amount of things that we dreamed about. We put a number on it, and then we would decide what we were working on this year. So let's just say the goal for this year was that in 3 years we wanted to take a family vacation, and it was going to take us 3 years to save up for the vacation that we'd want to take. We would backwards engineer that amount of money. Let's just say for the ease of computation, that it is $360. Why $360? Because there are 36 months in 3 years. So that assumes $10 a month. Now I know that that's low, but the math is easy. So out of our household budget, my husband would get paid, and $10, which did not seem like a lot, or whatever the number was, we would take out of our household account and put it in our special account. And in the special account, it would sit until we had enough to do whatever we needed to do. Now, the special account wasn't just about vacations. It was about getting another car when we needed it. It was about taking our family out to dinner. It was about money for Christmas. It was about paying our automobile insurance twice a year so we could get the little savings from paying it twice a year instead of monthly. Our special account was about special date nights or anniversaries, birthdays. We would make the list, add up the number. All of these things are going to cost us whatever amount a year, and we would break that up and save a little bit every month because we were dreaming in real time about what it would look like to have great family memories, great family experiences, and to be able to celebrate our family along the way. Listen, if we would not have set aside that little money and made small deposits, we would have gotten to the birthdays and the Christmases and all those things and not had enough. You should think about what it is that you want and plan for it. I have a friend who went overseas. She spent quite a few months, um, in Europe. Because she can. She's a graphic designer and she could live abroad and live her life. And you wanna know how she prepared for that? Small deposits. She mapped out where she wanted to go. She mapped out how long she wanted to be there. She mapped out how much she would have to make while she was traveling so she could still leave room to enjoy her travels. And then you know what she did? Made small deposits. And then, she took her trip. When I was growing up, my mother used to keep photo albums. She would tear pictures out of magazines and put them in those photo albums, you know, with the sticky pages and the plastic that covers it up. She was tearing pictures out, dreaming about the day when she'd be able to redecorate her home. When they moved into our home, it was already 30 years old. And she spent a lot of time dreaming about what she wanted it to look like. Well, she didn't have the money, and she didn't know when that time would come. But one day the time did come, and when it did, she knew exactly what she wanted. She thumbed back through her photo albums with all of her ideas. All of the ideas didn't make it, but many of them did because she'd spent so much time preparing for the time when her dream was reality. Listen, you gotta dream. My mother would often tell me, "Whatever is on the list of things that you want to do, Chrystal Hurst, write it down." Write it down and choose not to forget. Keep a picture in your mind of what you want and where you're going. Small deposits, writing it down as a deposit in your future, but also having a picture in your mind or in a photo album, not a bad idea. Deposits sometimes are financial. Often they're just you making plans. So write your plans down and make small deposits. Lastly, you do what you can with what you have. In my book She's Still There, I talk about my first apartment and how my aunt told me one day, "You gotta use your apartment right now." She told me that because I shared with her, "One day I wanna have people over, but I gotta wait until I have a bigger place." And she said, "What for?" Use your place now. Create the memories now. Have your friends over now. And so some of my best memories in my 20s were in that tiny apartment that got crowded out with friends. You use what you have because what you do right now is how you practice for your dream. Now I consider us to be living in what I call our forever home. I don't ever, ever want to move again. You know what I'm doing? Inviting friends over, having them over, entertaining with recipes, things that I've been cooking for 25 years. Do you want to know when I started entertaining? In my 20s, in that small apartment that had no couch with We sat on the floor on pillows or in rocking chairs and drank hot chocolate. Dreaming about my forever home in my 20s meant inviting friends over and sitting on pillows because you're always practicing who you want to be and you're always getting ready for what you want to experience. You use the opportunity now to Do what you can with what you have. Maybe you can't afford to go to that conference, but maybe they look for volunteers and you can volunteer and catch whatever you can until you can afford to buy the ticket. Maybe one day you wanna be able to have a weekly really nice date night with your spouse, but the best you can do right now is a $7 pizza from Cici's Pizza or Little Caesars, and you put the kids to bed and you eat pizza in your bed while you watch a movie because you're practicing togetherness that you hope you'll have one day. You do what you can with what you have because this is how you practice who you will be when your dreams come true. My good girlfriend and I, Michelle, we went to a conference in my 20s. We were so broke. We stayed in this ratty hotel. And y'all, we were so broke, we went to the grocery store and bought a bag of blueberry bagels, mini bagels. It just seemed like there were more of them in the bag with a container of cream cheese. And you want to know what we had every morning for breakfast? A mini bagel, and we shared a banana, and then we went to the conference. We bought bread and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we stood in line with our brown bags and enjoyed the conference so much. Good memories. Do you know what I do now? I speak at a lot of those conferences, but I have never forgotten what it cost me to come. Do you know how much got poured into my mind and in my heart at those conferences when I ate bagels before I showed up in the line? The investment in who I was becoming Going to the conference was an investment in who I am today. When I speak at the conference, you do what you can with what you have. If you don't have the knowledge, but you're dreaming about what it will be like one day when you do, you read, you read, you watch YouTube videos, you learn, you grow. Don't have the money to get to the degree. Okay. That's fine. While you're waiting on the money for the degree, study as much as you can. Be a good student of where you're going. I remember when I was single parenting and I thought, one day I'll be able to spend more time with my kid at the time. But I did the best I could and I would go to Barnes Noble sometimes after a long day at work. I'd get my daughter a hot chocolate and I'd get myself a white chocolate mocha. Been drinking that drink for a long time. And I'd get a book and I would go sit in the kids section with her and she'd get a book. 'Cause this is what I wanted to spend more time doing. And every now and then I'd do what I could. And then one day, who knew that I'd get to homeschool? That wasn't on my radar. And I spent the next 20 years of my life reading to my children. You do what you can with what you have because you're always practicing who you're going to be. If you can't manage $1,000, you won't be able to manage $100,000. Luke 16:10 says that he who is faithful in small things can be trusted with the bigger things. Zechariah 4:10 says, don't despise small beginnings. What do you do with the dreams you don't have money for? You write them down. You make small deposits in where you wanna go. They don't have to be large to move you forward. And you do what you can with what you have, because you're always practicing today who you're going to be tomorrow. So yes, get the little bank account off to the side. Put the money over there. Don't touch it. Add to it. Grow your own library. Borrow books from the library. You don't have to buy them. Borrow them. Share them with a friend. Go to the conferences as a volunteer. Learn how to cook. Your dreams should not be measured by the distance that you are from them today. The dream should be measured by the discipline that you are willing to exercise to be ready for the dream when it arrives. Because if you're doing what you need to do to be who you need to be, it's just a matter of time. And the only question is, when the time comes, will you be ready? Or will you wish that you had saved? Will you wish that you would have read? Will you wish that you would have thought about it, planned, torn pictures out of magazines? Will you wish that you had developed the relationship with your friends or with your spouse? Will you wish that you had spent time in this season eating some mini bagels and waiting in the line? What do you do with the dreams you don't have money for? You get ready for the day when you do. Because if you can get a clear picture of the dream in your head, then everything else is just a part of the journey. Now y'all listen, I got a money background now. Don't let me play with y'all. I believe in all the things. I believe, yes, invest your money. I believe in, yes, save for retirement. I believe in, um, being very, very wise, staying out of debt. I believe in doing things yourself, DIY to the max, from scratch if you have the time. Who said those clothes are old? All of that. I'm driving a car right now that's closing in on 200,000 miles. I'm not trying to blow money on a car, but I have these ways, mainly because I spent many years investing in the dreams that I wasn't even sure would come. The worst thing in the world is for the season of dreams to open up and you aren't ready. So this is me telling you to keep dreaming. But as you dream, get ready. And know that as you do, you'll be preparing for the you that is to come. All right, y'all. I would love to know. Tell me in the comments. What are you dreaming of that you currently don't think you can afford? Who do you want to be? What do you want to have? Where do you want to go? What do you want to experience? There's no bad dream. So share your dream and start by writing it down and letting me know. And then I'd love to know, what are you going to do to prepare for it? I can't wait to read your comments. If this video has been helpful to you, be sure and share it. All right, y'all.