What did you want to be before the world told you to be realistic?

Somewhere between becoming employable and becoming successful, many of us accidentally stop becoming ourselves.

When I was a child, my dream job was to work in HR, sit in an office from 9 to 5 and spend my days in back to back meetings...

Said no child ever.

I wanted to become an actress.

I spent years performing in theatre at school.

My first internship wasn't in HR either. It was with a wedding photographer.

As a child, I loved creating.

I loved telling stories.

Then I grew up.

I chose the sensible path.

I studied Business Psychology, built a career in HR and spent the last six years helping people grow.

And I genuinely loved it.

I don't regret that path for a second.

But over the years, one piece of feedback kept following me.

"One of your biggest strengths is your creativity."

It came up in performance reviews.

Feedback conversations.

Strength and personality assessments.

More recently, I completed a values exercise.

Creativity ended up in my top three.

That surprised me more than I expected.

Not because creativity is one of my strengths - I already knew that.

Because I'd never thought of it as one of my core values.

One of the things I've loved over the last few weeks has been writing again.

Writing on my blog. Creating content.

Pressing Publish.

There's something incredibly liberating about putting something into the world simply because it feels true to you.

No approvals.

No feedback rounds.

No waiting for someone else to tell you it's ready.

Just an idea.

A blank page.

And the courage to share it.

Working in a large organisation taught me how to create within constraints.

Budgets. Priorities. Stakeholders. Business cases.

That's not a criticism.

It's simply how organisations work.

But it also made me realise something.

The opposite of creativity isn't a lack of ideas.

It's the moment you stop suggesting them because you already know what the answer will be.

Looking back, my creativity didn't disappear.

It just became increasingly filtered.

"Great idea, but..."

"There's no budget."

"It's not the priority."

"Maybe next year."

"We've always done it like that."

None of those responses are wrong.

I've said some of them myself.

Not every idea deserves a green light.

That's reality.

But if you hear those sentences often enough...

you slowly stop bringing the ideas that are a little crazy.

Eventually, you don't need someone else to reject them.

You do it for them.

Obviously, I don't actually want to become an actress anymore.

And I don't want to be a professional photographer either.

But I still want exactly what those dreams gave me.

I want to tell stories.

I want to notice every day beauty and romanticise life.

I want to create something that makes someone stop, think or feel understood.

That's never changed. Only the way I express it has.

Today it looks like writing.

Taking pictures.

Creating content.

Building my own business.

Different expression. Same person.

The little girl who wanted to be on stage never disappeared.

She just grew up.

Maybe we're not all supposed to become actors, footballers or astronauts.

Maybe our childhood dreams aren't predictions of our future careers.

But sometimes those dreams come back as strengths.

As values.

As hobbies.

As the part of your job you secretly enjoy most.

Or as the thing you can't stop thinking about.

Maybe the question isn't whether you followed your childhood dream.

Maybe it's whether you've still made room for the part of yourself that dreamed it in the first place.

Because I have a feeling...

those parts of us are incredibly patient.

They'll wait quietly for years.

But if you ignore them for long enough...

they have a funny way of asking for your attention again.

Sometimes all they really wanted...

was a little more room.

Namaste,

Sarah x