The Ninjago theory of dreams

A reflection on goals, fear and the dreams we quietly make smaller

So, half of the year is gone. The solstice has passed and, here in the Northern Hemisphere of this gorgeous planet, the light has begun its slow turn towards darker days. Which makes this feel like a natural moment to pause and ask: how have you lived the first half of the year?

There is a gorgeous poem by the extraordinary Brazilian poet Carlos Drummond de Andrade that goes something like this (this is my free translation into English, so apologies if it is not perfect!):

"For you to have a stunning New Year (...)
not merely painted new, patched up in a hurry,
but new in the seeds of becoming;
new
even in the heart of the least noticed things
(starting with yourself) (...)
you, my dear, have to deserve it
you have to make it new, and although it is not easy
just try, experiment consciously.
It is inside you that the New Year
sleeps and waits since always"

It may seem a little mad to be talking about New Year now, but I think it worth the revisit at this point. And I love the sentiment of this poem, as it focus on the "new" not being on tactics, messages, rituals or a turn of an invented calendar; it begins inside you.
Funnily enough, I had been revisiting different goals setting frameworks when I happened to have a very interesting conversation with my youngest son last weekend. My very wise Max is only 6 years old. He asked me: "Mummy, I am interested in your dreams." (Yeap, he did use the word interested).
His question took me by surprise and sparked a fascinating conversation about dreams, goals, fears and nightmares. As we talked, we began to draw the parallels between the dreams we have while sleeping and the ones we hold while awake. Eventually, Max reached the following conclusion: "Goals are dreams that you make happen. For example, the Ninjago Lego set I dream about, I can make into a goal by saving my pocket money or selling some old toys to be able to buy it. But when your fears come around, you can have nightmares. A nightmare's job is to wake you up."

So much wisdom in one little conversation!
And it made me wonder: are the goals you set for 2026 genuinely connected to your dreams, or were they shaped by should haves? How many of them have been tailored down by the shoulds, the ceilings and the hows?
And could there be lessons hiding within the “nightmares”? Could they contain wake up calls? Perhaps some fears are simply projections: images we hold in our minds that feel real enough to keep our dreams contained, even when they are not the truth.

But perhaps fear is not always something to dismiss.
Sometimes it is showing us that something is not right: that a goal was never truly ours, or maybe that we are moving in a direction shaped by expectation, comparison or the version of success we were taught to want.
At its most basic, fear alerts us to perceived danger and pulls our attention sharply into the present. But not every perceived danger is an actual one. Sometimes fear appears precisely because the dream matters more than we are willing to admit. Perhaps the dream asks us to be seen or asks to risk disappointment by admitting how much we want something when it may not happen exactly as we imagine. Maybe fear is asking us to move beyond the identity we have become comfortable inhabiting and to admit that we want something before we have any certainty that we can create it, receive it or hold it.

And perhaps this is one of the most important questions we can ask at this point in the year: did I leave a goal or dream behind because it no longer feels true, or because it feels too important?

And those are two very different things.

Not every goal written in January deserves to be carried into December. Some goals need to be released because they were built from proving or a collection of should haves. But some dreams have been quietly tailored down to fit in our little box. We make them more sensible, more achievable or more acceptable. We might reduce them until they fit comfortably inside our current life, our current confidence and our current understanding of what is possible.

And then we wonder why sometimes our goals do not make us feel particularly alive.
A meaningful goal is not simply something you believe you can achieve. It is a bridge between the life you are living and the life that is asking to be expressed through you.
Your values act as a compass, helping recognise whether the destination and the route towards it are truly yours. Your goals give the dream direction, showing the destination is aligned. Your everyday choices and systems turn that direction into movement, so you continue on your path consistently to cross that bridge. And your identity (the person you believe yourself to be) will influence how far you allow yourself to travel.

On that journey, sometimes the next step is action; sometimes it is rest. And sometimes it is saying no to what is draining the life from you. Sometimes it is finally admitting what you want without immediately explaining why it is impractical or jumping into the how-to.

Perhaps a mid year reflection is not an opportunity to judge how well you have performed against the list you wrote in January. Perhaps it is an opportunity to meet yourself again and ask: What still feels alive in me? Which dreams have I neglected because life became busy? Which goals no longer belong to me? Which desires have I made smaller because I could not yet see the entire path? And which dreams did I hide so well because I didn't believe to be possible?

And then ask: what is one thing I can do (not someday, but now) to make one of those dreams a little more likely?

For Max, it might be saving his pocket money or selling a few old toys for his Ninjago Lego set. For you, it might be sending the message or having the conversation. Maybe it is protecting an hour of your week or asking for support (that is a hard one, I know!). Perhaps it's giving yourself permission to rest long enough to hear yourself again. The action does not need to contain the entire dream. It only needs to tell the dream: I am listening and I am choosing to take the next step.

Maybe that is what Drummond meant when he wrote that the New Year has always been sleeping and waiting inside us; the new does not arrive because the calendar changes. It begins when we consciously choose to meet what has been waiting within us.

Nightmares and fears may wake us up.
Dreams show us what is calling us forward.
And goals are one of the ways we begin to answer.