Letting Go of a Dream Isn’t Failure — It’s Growth

(screen clicks) (bright music) Headspace Studios. (gentle music) Hey, welcome to "Radio Headspace." I'm Dora. I used to believe I'd play in the WNBA. I played basketball from the Fourth Grade through 12th. I took it seriously. Early mornings, after school drills, full weekends in the gym. It gave me something to focus on, something to pour myself into, and I really thought that's where I was headed. But growing up in Canada, that path didn't quite feel possible. Eventually, I stopped chasing it and started moving towards something else. The part I wasn't ready for was the guilt. Guilt that I had abandoned something sacred, guilt that I had let my younger self down. And there's this idea that honoring our inner child means fulfilling their every wish. But sometimes honoring them means knowing when to let go. Not because we failed, but because we've evolved. Our younger selves didn't have access to all the information that we have now. They didn't know what would feel meaningful to us 10, 20 years down the line. So when we change course, we're not betraying them. We're listening more closely to ourselves now. And in Zen Buddhism, there's a story that speaks to this kind of evolution. This reminds me of a story about a student who trained for years to become a master calligrapher. He began as a boy obsessed with form, discipline, and ink. His identity was shaped by repetition and devotion. He practiced daily, believing the mastery of the brush, would be his life's purpose. But over time, something shifted. The practice started to feel forced. His attention turned to stillness, meditation. The long silent walks between training sessions began to matter more than the brushstrokes themselves. Still, he pushed forward, he told himself that the doubt was laziness, that he owed it to the younger version of himself to finish what he had started. Eventually exhausted and confused, he went to his teacher and confessed, "I feel like I'm failing the student I used to be." The teacher said, "He led you here. He carried you as far as he could, and now it's time to go without him." Growth often looks like a goodbye, and I think many of us are walking around with these quiet shames, not because we've done something wrong, but because we're still holding ourselves accountable to the goals that we've made when we were kids. But the truth is, you're not here to fulfill the dreams of your past. You're here to be present in the life that you're actually living. But what if we're not here just to fulfill the dreams of our past? We're here to be present in the life that we're actually living. We never question outgrowing the toys we loved at three. We don't shame ourselves for no longer obsessing over our favorite band at 13. But when it comes to our old goals, we treat them like contracts we can't break. You don't have to...