When My Dreams Had to Wait: Relearning Desire as a Mother and Entrepreneur

“What do you want?”

For years, that question made my chest tighten.

Not for lack of ambition or trying, but because desire itself had gone quiet. Nothing was left after working and keeping my tiny human alive. Vision boards, year-end reflections, and coaching prompts asking me to imagine my future all landed the same way: blank, overwhelming, vaguely irritating. 

The Dreaded Question: 

What do you want? I had learned how to build, sustain, and carry responsibility. Wanting felt like a luxury I could not afford.

If you are a mother, an entrepreneur, or a parent who has spent years being the reliable one, this may feel uncomfortably familiar.

I have been a solo mother since before my daughter was born, by choice. I built this life deliberately. But that doesn’t make it easier. From the beginning, safety was non-negotiable. I was the only net. Every decision carried weight. On top of that, building a business is inherently risky. Dreaming required spaciousness; survival squelched it.

So my dreams didn’t disappear. They were deferred, buried, and suffocated.

Over the last decade, I’ve built three businesses, including Red Thread Publishing, where I’ve guided hundreds of authors to write and publish meaningful nonfiction. I love my work to the point that I allow it to replace much of my lived experience. Passion became practical. Vision narrowed to what was responsible. Capability crowded out curiosity.

At some point, my dreaming muscle atrophied.

This showed up most clearly when I tried, again, to reread The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris. Years ago, when I first read it, resistance and emptiness. Not because the ideas were wrong, but because I couldn’t feel a dream attached to them. Because I was still so enthralled with the productivity myth. My identity was linked to how hard I was working, and my value was dependent on drowning in responsibility. 

Survival rewires the nervous system. For mothers and entrepreneurs, especially women, the cost is often invisible. We are praised for resilience, consistency, and devotion. Rarely do we name what gets lost in the process. For many of us, hope and desire become things we postpone in the name of responsibility. But by postponing, we kind of kill them. They stop sprouting.

This time, reading the book, I realized: it wasn’t that I didn’t want anything. I had forgotten how to recognize want. Desire had learned to stay quiet because it wasn’t useful. It wasn’t safe. And it certainly wasn’t urgent.

What has changed now is both external and internal.

Externally, my daughter is older. My business is stable. There is financial safety. I am no longer bracing in the same way.

Internally, something more important has shifted. I trust myself. I know I am good at what I do. I know I can handle motherhood and leadership. Responsibility once eclipsed me; it no longer has to.

This bold realization has arrived in the quiet season between the solstice and the new year, in the quiet darkness.

I am not abandoning devotion, I couldn’t if I tried. I am widening it to include myself.

Relearning how to dream, not in grand, reckless ways, but gently. Carefully and with curiosity. Desire not as escape, but as honoring life force. Adventure not as abandonment, but as commitment to presence.

It also looks like devotion to my daughter in a new way: creating time, space, and shared adventures. Deepening this lived experience. I will model for her what I hope she will grow into as a young woman, not the grinding alone I have been doing, but exploring this incredible world. Treating life as an exciting experiment, not a burden to endure.

The irony is not lost on me. In my writing community, I teach a cyclical creative methodology rooted in rest, alignment, and honoring seasons. I know, intellectually, the importance of pause and renewal. It is far easier to teach than to practice. This piece is, in many ways, my return to the truth of my own work.

As I reflected on this season, I found myself resonating deeply with a recent Awakened Magazine piece by Simone Jennings on clearing manifestation mishaps and unblocking the year ahead, a reminder that desire doesn’t disappear. It waits for safety and alignment to return.

I know I am not the only one who needs to relearn desire and hope as a practice. Sadly, I know this experience is tragically common, especially among women and parents who have carried too much for too long.

So I’ll leave you with the questions I’m sitting with now:

• Where have you postponed hope in the name of responsibility?
• What might stretching your dreaming muscle look like in the coming year?

The light is coming back to the world. Let the light come back to your life, too. We are allowed to meet it. I will see you there, where hope and desire play.

TAKE ACTION: Сreate a small moment of stillness this week and ask yourself, “What do I want—without obligation or urgency?” Let the answer be simple. Relearning desire begins with permission. Learn more about Sierra Melcher’s work at her website.