A lively conversation at Successful Blogger (Finding Your Frequency in Business and in Life) got me thinking, dreaming, about the process of change. And it seems to me that all change has to start with a dream — a desire for something different. Once we let ourselves dream about change, and if we like — we can take that dream as a goal. Then we can begin making plans to fullfill it.

But without taking the time to dream, seemingly aimlessly, we might never discover the dream that is right for us.In my dream I’ll lose enough weight (and keep it off) that I can control my blood sugar without medication. Already, I’m taking 1/2 the medication that I was taking a year ago. I’m hoping that when I reach my goal weight, I won’t have to take any. In the meantime, I like it that I can wear prettier clothes and don’t get breathless when I walk. But those are side benefits to the pursuit of my dream — taking fewer drugs.

With that goal in mind, I regularly hunt for Diet and Fitness software that can track Food, Exercise & Blood Sugar and provide graphs that help me see the relationship, the impact, of particular foods or specific exercises on my blood glucose level. I’ve been checking every couple of months for years, frustrated by the lack of sophistication both in the programs I’ve seen reviewed and the ones I’ve actually tried.

But today, I’ve got some hope. I stumbled upon a program called Performance Diet, which claims to do exactly this. I’ve just purchased & installed it — I haven’t even run it for the first time yet. But they do track Nutrition/Exercise/blood sugar, and even if their reports aren’t exactly what I want, they allow export of the data (also an uncommon feature) so I should be able to manipulate it in Excel, if they don’t do what I need automatically.

So it starts with a dream. Then some trial and error (buying a Palm Pilot with the idea of writing the software myself, BalanceLog & FitDay) and eventually (maybe not yet, but I’m hoping) success with Performance Diet.

It’s important to remember that the important thing is your dream, not the particular path it takes to get there. Getting to the dream can be frustrating or fun, but you won’t ever get there if you don’t dream it first.

Up at the top of my left sidebar I ask, “Isn’t it time you made a commitment?“, but couldn’t it just as well be, “Isn’t it time you found your dream?”

What’s your dream?