So I had this dream. Not like “I have a dream” as in some big dream for society or anything grand like that. My dream was just for me. My dream was for my own family. My dream was out of my reach, or so I thought.

When I began as a Beachbody coach, I created a vision board with goals and dreams I’d like to achieve/make real (if you’ve never done this, I highly recommend you google it and make one!). I keep it hanging where I can see it every day. I spend time every day simply visualizing these things at the time they’ve really happened. Still though, I felt they were very far away. I had created a real plan to actually reach them but they seemed currently out of reach.

One of those dreams was to live on the beach, right were I could hear the waves from my bedroom, walk out and watch the pelicans diving in, be amazed by storms and lightening  over the ocean, go for evening walks on the beach, watch the sunrise, and well, you get the point. It was my dream. It was something that brought a smile to my face just thinking about it. I didn’t think I could have it though, at least not any time soon.

Then, one day, on a whim, my husband and I stopped at an open house for a beachfront condo that was for sale. We laughed as we went in and made a bet on who would have the closest guess as to the exorbitant price it would cost. We were surprised to find that it actually was less than we thought. In fact, it wasn’t much more than the cost of our current house. Then we looked a little deeper and found that there were lots of places available that actually were in our price range. The caveat was they were smaller, much smaller than our 2000 sq ft, 4 bedroom house in a perfect little family neighborhood. Buuut this was my DREAM. It was actually within my reach. Would we be able to downsize so significantly? Would that be practical? How would it affect our children?

My husband loved the idea. We talked about the pros and cons for awhile but not long. We basically decided one thing. We decided that right now, in this moment, this dream was within our reach and the circumstances surrounding it were perfectly aligned. We didn’t know if that would ever happen again in our lives. Maybe it would but maybe it wouldn’t. So we went for it.

Just like that. We called our real estate agents, LB Realty, and said we wanted to sell our house and move to a condo on the beach. We literally sold it in a week from the day we put it on the market, sold half of our stuff along with it, and rented a 2 bedroom beachfront condo.

Every day, I wake up to the sound of the ocean waves.

Every morning, I sit outside and drink my Shakeology as I watch the sunrise.

Every day, I workout next to a window overlooking the ocean.

Every day, my girls and I go in the pool.

We go for family walks on the beach 3 or 4 nights a week.

We watch lightning storms, pelicans, crabs, surfers, and hunt for turtles.

It is literally my dream come true. Is it completely perfect? No. The girls are somewhere between loving and hating sharing a room. There’s a bit of an ant problem. Salt makes things rust easy and get weird, like sliding glass doors for instance. The sun’s light/heat coming into the windows from the  between 8 am and 12 pm is INTENSE lol

None of that compares to the good though.

We took a risk. While some family members and friends called us crazy, many actually said living on the beach was their dream too. All I have to say is that the cliche “you only live once” is true. If you have dreams, don’t let them just exist in your sleep. Make them happen. Go after them. Make them real. Take a risk. Take a leap of faith.

If you don’t, what good does it do? If you die tomorrow, will you have lived a life you loved or will you have simply settled, just gotten by, told yourself you “didn’t need that to be happy?” I believe we all not only deserve to have our dreams come true but we all have the capacity to make them happen. We are all born with the same 24 hours in a day. We all have the choice to spend an hour either doing something to take us towards our goals or just watching tv. The choice is yours. What will you decide?