This may seem incredibly obvious, incredibly easy, but you would be surprised how many people seriously limit their dreams. They’re your dreams for heaven’s sake. There should be no limit to them. Plans have to be realistic; dreams don’t.

I worked in the casino business for many years and was always intrigued that ‘punters’ (what we should really call ‘customers’) could never see it: that they would always lose because they wouldn’t limit their losses but would always limit their winnings. Don’t ask me why. I guess addicted gamblers are seriously not well. They’d go in with the right attitude – ‘I’ll just lose this fiver and then pack it in’. Result: they’d lose the fiver and cash a cheque to chase it. Then another to chase the lost cheque. And another.

I’m not advocating gambling by the way – not now, not ever; it’s really not a good idea, believe me. The point is that people limit their dreams the way they limit their winnings. And yet dreams are at worst harmless. Don’t limit them! You are allowed to dream as high, as wide, as big, as extravagant, as impossible, as wacky, as silly, as bizarre, as unrealistically nonsensical as you want.

You are allowed to wish for anything you want as well. Look, wishes and dreams are all private affairs. There are no wish police, no dream doctors who are on the rampage looking out for unrealistic demands. It is a private thing between you and . . . that’s it. Between you and absolutely no one else at all.

The only note of caution here – and I do speak from personal experience – is be very careful of what you do wish for, what you dream of, because it might just come true. And where would you be then?

A lot of people think their dreams have to be realistic to be worth dreaming about. But that’s a plan and that is something quite different. I have plans and I take logical steps to make them come to fruition. Dreams are allowed to be so improbable that they are never likely to come true. And don’t go thinking you’ll never achieve anything by sitting around day-dreaming all day. Some of the most successful people have also been those who have dared to dream the most. It isn’t a coincidence.