The 3 Biggest Lessons I Learned from Achieving A Childhood Dream
Ever since I was five, my biggest dream was to become an author.
In 2024, that finally became true. My novel about mental health, identity, and connection, Behind the Red Wooden Door (YA, magical realism, literary fiction), has become available for preorder (here) at last. Getting here was never an easy process, but it was oh-so fulfilling and beautifully thrilling.
Throughout this process, I learned several important lessons.
Behind the Red Wooden Door
by Sofia Ulrikson
Following a particularly distressing event, Drew starts having strange dreams which feature a mysterious red, wooden door. Hesitant at first to explore this other world that feels as substantial as reality, she nonetheless finds herself drawn to the door upon witnessing a masked stranger entering it alone.
With its magical premise and beautiful prose, Behind the Red Wooden Door tells the heartfelt and emotional story of a girl whose mental health has broken down — and whose efforts to heal must come from a series of unexpected reconciliations.
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Website and Newsletter: sofiaulrikson.com
1: You must find meaning in your work
For your health and happiness, the work you do should matter.
Work is always more rewarding and worthwhile when it is meaningful — when it truly matters to you and maybe resonates with the people around you. Your job or other activities may not feel very meaningful to you, but it is possible to find meaning even in the dullest work, or, potentially, to seek out other work that gives you a sense of meaning. It is a beautiful, healing thing to find work (whether as a vocation or a passion, or even a hobby) that resonates so deeply that it gives your life purpose and direction.
Writing my book was not just meaningful to me because it concerned a childhood dream of becoming an author. It also mattered because of the story I was telling, and the lessons I was spreading to my readers by means of its world and characters. It was this irremovable, irresistible inner drive to create and share stories that I and others would love that kept me moving.
Finding meaning in the time you spend is important for a life well lived.
2: Your dream matters more than your fears
When something matters to you deeply, it is easy to get caught up in fears.
Your aim projects a big desire, so, naturally, your mind spins thoughts and emotions of anxiety that might convince you not to pursue that work. Even if some of these concerns may be valid (like, “I don’t have the money” or “I haven’t ever done this before”), they are not reasons not to try in the ways that you can. It does not hurt to do what you can with your dream, because apart from the fact that it matters so deeply to you that it is hard for you to look away, you get to live a more meaningful life if you simply decide to embark on the journey.
At the time of writing my novel, I was battling a difficult case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (which involves feelings of uncertainty and anxiety) and experienced numerous doubts regarding my project, from whether a particular word I had used was perfect enough to whether I was any good at all as a storyteller. These fears stole a lot of time and space in my brain, and if I had given them no resistance, I would not have had a book out in stores today. But I made the decision, over and over again, to place a higher value on my dream than on my fears.
Because at the end of the day, your dream is what actually matters.
3: You are more capable than you think
What you can do is not a product of your limitations.
It is a product of your abilities — the things you are able to do. Progress is made by focusing on what it is that you can do with your circumstances to reach a desired state, as Stephen Covey illustrates in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Though you have your limitations in life like everyone else (be it money, time, health, or something else), these cannot stop you from doing what you can do — and when you have this principle in the back of your mind, you might find that there is more that you can do than you originally suspected.
Writing a book is not just about writing. It entails a hundred small and big tasks I would never have imagined when I initially began the journey, many of which I had little to no prior experience with (like creating my website and newsletter, collaborating with my book cover designer, and editing my manuscript based on the extensive feedback provided by my editor). These were skills I had to learn along the way — and that was by choosing to focus on what it was that I could do each step of the way.
For because of my dream, it mattered only to keep going.
Until I was there at last.
