Have you an idea about how you could improve your life but do not have the confidence to make that dream into a reality? Have you a plan that you hope to implement when you are a little older, possibly when you are retired? In this article, I write about a dream I had when growing up as a teenager, a dream I made into a reality when I was in my early twenties.

My name is Steve Hill and I was born in the second largest city in England, called Birmingham. The pace of life in Birmingham is quite hectic and the crime rate is fairly high. In saying this I am very proud to be a Brummie, the knickname for people who are born in Birmingham, and am very fond of the city.

My parents would take us on holiday each year to the South West coast of England to a county called Devon. We would stay in a place called Brixham which basically seemed to be the opposite of what Birmingham was. It was very quite, was very relaxed, had only a small amount of minor crime and the people were a whole lot more friendly. I enjoyed some superb holidays in Brixham up until the age of about sixteen and would often dream that one day, I would actually live there.

This of course was only a dream and I believed that I would probably make it happen when I had retired. At the age of twenty-three I was offered a voluntary redundancy package at the insurance company where I had been working since I had left school. This was a great opportunity for me to get paid to leave a company that I had been thinking about leaving for many years. I took the package on offer and then started to think about my next move, for example, where I wanted to work, where I wanted to live etc.

At this point in my life I had been dating a young lady for around two years. I had told her about my dream of one day moving to Brixham and she also seemed to share my passion for the area.

I then decided that I wanted to make the move now while I had the chance. Why should I wait until I am retired? Life is too short I thought to myself, I might not even live until retirement age.

My girlfriend was very up and excited about my idea of moving to Brixham and the move went ahead. I have to say that I loved living in Devon and there were not many aspects from my past life that I actually missed, apart from my friends and family.

After living in Brixham for a few years my father became very ill. I travelled up and down the motorway to visit him in hospital and eventually decided that it was now time to move back to Birmingham. This was because I wanted to spend as much time with him and my mother as I possibly could.

I will without doubt return to Devon and do not regret for one minute making the move when I did. Life is about living and about making your dreams into reality.

Steve Hill

Stephen Hill runs The How To Stop Stammering Centre In England. He offers stuttering therapy courses to help people who stutter to achieve fluency. Stuttering is also known in some countries as stammering.