The Myth of Overnight Success: What It Really Takes to Make a Dream Come True

Mar 23, 2025

You know those people for whom everything seems to work out? Who get just what they need when they need it or seem to be living the life most have only dreamt of? What’s their secret?

I can tell you—because I’ve been told I’m one of them.

As with most things in life, nothing is as it appears.

For example: my move to Spain in July of 2021. That didn’t just “happen.”

I’d spent twenty years trying to figure out how to move to Europe legally. In my twenties, it seemed that every program to work abroad only came onto my radar just after I crossed the threshold of being too old to qualify.

I’d get discouraged. Lose my momentum. But deep down, I knew I was meant to be living in Europe. So I’d begin again.

In my thirties, I got my Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) only to learn that Europe wasn’t particularly interested in hiring Americans to teach English—it was much easier to hire British and Irish citizens as they were part of the European Union (EU).
I learned I qualified for an EU passport thanks to my Italian heritage, but soon realized I could be dead before that process got through all of the Italian bureaucracy. (Spoiler alert: It took ten years. And I’m still alive.)
In my forties, I got certified as a middle and high school math teacher so I could apply to teach at international schools— and then COVID shut down the world.

I haven’t done the research, but my guess is that there aren’t many people who are an “overnight success.” But branding them as such makes a better story.

Much of our media thrives on stories that can be told in a few seconds, and any of us who have managed to see a dream fulfilled can’t tell our story in a few seconds. Not if we want to give you the whole truth of it, that is.

So if it looks like someone was an “overnight success,” dig a little deeper. I’m sure it looked more like this:

We have a dream.
We start working towards it.
We get stuck.
We have to take a detour.
We think of giving up. Sometimes we stop working towards the dream for weeks, months, years.
Something shows up to help us in a way we never imagined.
We get re-inspired.
We hit a dead end.
We turn around.
Sometimes we just stop and sit there for a while trying to get our bearings.
We try another idea.
We get stuck, or hit a detour, or move in another direction entirely.
And then, some or all of these things happen again. In a different order. And then again.

And then, one day, (more likely, over the course of a few months or years), all the pieces start falling into place.

But we often don’t see that until we’ve reached the goal and look back—that is, if we even take a moment to reflect before we set ourselves on the path to the next goal.

Or sometimes we look back and still can’t figure out some bigger reason for which we weren’t “destined” to get to Europe in our 20s or 30s. That’s okay, too.

Note: This whole process of dream-attainment can take 10 years (in the case of my Italian passport) or 20 years (in the case of my move to Europe). But it you think on that timeline, you won’t keep going.

Just keep going.

Or stop and take a breather.

And then get back on the path.

It’s not lost on me that this is the same philosophy that helps people get to the Camino de Santiago and walk it to their desired destination. People on various social media outlets talk about how “amazing” the Camino is. How much they learned. How to choose your route, your gear, where to sleep.

But rarely do we talk about how hard it can be.

There were days I:

got lost
got injured
got soaked in the rain
found myself on the flat plateau in the middle of Spain in scorching temperatures without water.

So I’d pause. I’d cry. I’d look around for help and take it when it was offered. Sometimes I’d just slump to the ground and sit there til a person or an idea or inspiration came to me.

Rain-soaked Rebecca —at this point, I accepted that I owned a water-resistant jacket, not a waterproof jacket.

Clearly there’s something to this walk as, despite all the challenges of the first one, I’ve gone back more than 10 times since. Sometimes to accompany others on their Camino journey. Sometimes to have time to reflect for myself.

Or sometimes just to be reminded that many things won’t happen on my timeline. And that’s okay. But if I keep moving forward, some day I’ll be writing a post on a train, my Italian passport in my purse at last, on my way back to my home in Spain.