July 7th is coming this week. We all know what the special day is for July 7th, right?

That is correct. It is Tanabata.

Tanabata is a day that is not celebrated in Canada. It is not celebrated in Europe either. Tanabata is a tradition that is mostly in Japan, and it is a lovely time of the year.

I did not know much about Tanabata before I came to Japan, but I learned that it is a time that celebrates the annual meeting in the sky of two special stars. It is the time when Orihime and Hikoboshi meet. These two stars fell in love but they could not continue their relationship, so this is kind of a sad story.

But for ordinary people like you and me, Tanabata is a time to make wishes and to write our hopes on paper. It is a time to share our dreams with friends and to think about the future. This is a lovely tradition and has a wonderful culture and story too.

What will you wish for? What do you hope for? What will you write on paper for your Tanabata dream?

And then, after you finish writing down your dream, what do you do?

Is that the end? Did you write something like, “I wish to be a great person in the future?” Or, did you write, “I want to have success, and money, and power, and a great career?”

All of those wishes are perfectly fine. But how are you going to make your Tanabata wish into a reality? How will you catch your Tanabata wish?

Maybe only writing your dream is not enough. It is an important first step, but what will you do for the second step?

Maybe the next step is to write on paper your goal. If you have a dream to be a singer or a doctor or an artist or a business owner you should write your goal on paper.

When you write a goal, you make a wish into something that looks possible. A goal is closer to reality than a dream. When you write your goals you are thinking about how to make a dream come true.

Then after you write your goal on paper, you should start to make a plan. You should write your plan about how you will reach your goal. A plan will have a timeline from now until your first goal. A dream might have several goals and each goal will need a plan. Plans grow into goals that grow into dreams that come true.

Maybe your dream is to be a professional in something that you love. You will probably need to go to university to improve your education. Your first goal, as a student, is to go to university. You will need to make a plan for that first goal. And you will need to talk to your mother or father, and also your teachers. You have people in your life who want you to have your dream come true. But first we need goals and plans. You can do it.

Every long journey starts with a first step.

If you do not make a plan to get to a goal, you will only have a dream that cannot come true.

So, let’s all take some time to think about our dreams, and enjoy that dream. And then, let’s take some time to deeply think about the goals we must reach to get that dream. And then, let’s take some time to make a plan for each goal. And then, let’s make a schedule for those plans.

Tanabata wishes come from goals and those goals come from plans and those plans come from schedules that are completed. Draw out your dreams, and your goals, and your plans, and your schedule.

You can be a dreamer and a planner. And this combination of two worlds will make you a great success in the future.