Chart Your Course

Perhaps as a child you dreamed of being a ballerina or playing in the world-series. Perhaps you dreamed of traveling to exotic locations, of flying to the moon, or of being in movies. All of us had childhood dreams.  And many of us still have the same dreams now as adults.

Dreams are nothing more than what we imagine our life would be like. It’s the experiences we hope to live.

Sadly though, many have given up on their dreams.

“It’s to late,” they say. That may be true…

It may be to late to play in the world series, but you could still attend the world series, and adult form of  “play.”

It may be to late to be the star ballerina, but it’s not to late to dance, and to enjoy it. And it’s not to late to attend the ballet often.

And…

It’s not to late to build more dreams!
It’s not to late to make your dreams come true!

You’ve just got to give yourself permission to dream!

To help with that I’m adding a new resource, via a series of posts, here at Dream, Act, Plan, Believe. The word envision is to picture mentally some future event or events, so the new series is called Envision This.

The Envision This series will showcase some of the things I dream of doing, fascinating places to visit, exotic foods to try, things to experience, and some things you may just find interesting. It is designed to provide you with ideas – ideas of things that you can do to bring more joy in your life.

It’s a tool for you to use in creating new dreams and making dreams come true.

The first post is coming Monday.

By the way, you’ll recognize the posts in the Envision It series because they’ll have the envision this image (shown at the top of this post) in it.

Be sure to explore the site to find additional resources on how to make your dreams come true.

Image Courtesy of Mavens

Imagination and creativity go hand-in-hand.  By breaking down the words creativity and imagination we can gain a great understanding of how closely connected they are.

Imagination

• image – to form a mental picture
• ate – join
• ion – action

So we can see that imagination is an action.  It’s the act of forming a mental picture and is not the ability to recall a mental picture.

Creativity

• create –  to evolve something from one’s own thoughts or imagination, such as creating a work of art or an invention.
• ity – a suffix expressing a state or condition

So creativity is the ability to express what one sees with their own thoughts or imagination.  And imagination is a skill that helps to bring things into existence.

If imagination is the skill that helps to bring the things we create into existence and creativity is the ability to express what one sees with their own thoughts or imagination then one can’t really exist without the other.

Imagination and creativity are at work when new inventions are created, when new breakthroughs in science are discovered (see science is imagination), when new clothing lines are created, when new pieces of music are created, and when new recipes are served up.

So pay attention to those images that pop into your head.  Your imagination just may be trying creatively solve a problem.

• What are they telling you?
• How can you bring that image forth from your imagination and create something that will make a difference?

Image Courtesy of Oberazzi

Creative questions are the imagination’s appetizer. They wet your brains palette and they stimulate creativity.

If you want your imagination to kick-in and reveal that next great idea you’ve got to get your brain to work on it. The best way to do that is to ask it questions.

You see, your brain is already asking itself questions all day long as it tries to make sense of what is going on around us. So trick your brain into working for our benefit, rather than against it.

When you want a solution to something, when you want to get your creative juices going don’t just make a wish, ask a question.

For example, rather that saying, “I wish I could go to Hawaii,” ask “How Can I Spend a Week in Hawaii this year and get paid for it?” Then pay attention to the answers you get (more about that tomorrow).

Here’s a list of ways you can start your questions that stimulate creative thinking:

• How can I…
• What can I do to…
• How can I learn…
• How can I meet…
• What action can I take that will…
• Where can I find the information I need to…
• Who can help me…

Do you ask yourself the right questions?

Courtesy of Andrew McConnochie

Your imagination is very likely starving, and in Manage Your Imagination to Increase Your Success I promised to share some tips, insight, and resources on what to feed your imagination. Today, is the first article in that series.

We start out with a personal story…

Looking for deer has become a ritual on the way home from Grandmas This past Easter Sunday was no different and we found ourselves driving next to the orchard we frequently saw deer in.  Suddenly I caught a glimpse of a magnificent building sitting upon the hill.  I thought, “Wow -- what is that building that is glowing like a beacon on the hill?”  It was unexpected, yet it shouldn’t have been.

As it turned out it was a Mormon temple that I had passed probably hundreds of  times, but it was if I as seeing it for the very first time.

I’d seen it at different angles, and from different locations, and I should have seen it from this particular angle before -- but I had always been busy looking for the glow of the deer’s eyes, and not really taking time to pay attention to the things above my typical field of view.

How often have you walked past somethings that warrants a little attention and ignored it? Doing so doesn’t serve you and it starves your imagination.

My husband, some friends, and I went on a cruise this past summer.  We arrived back in port with quite a few hours to spare and decided to spend the time walking around San Diego and taking in the sights.

As we walked I photographed.  I captured, among other things, the bark on trees, the interesting shape of the tree’s roots, the texture of the sidewalks, the cute bird that visited us for lunch, and flowers from unique angles.

My friend turned to me and said, ” Leisa, I can tell you are an artist.  You notice things that I just tend to walk by.  I love seeing how you see the world!”

I once heard it said that artists notice things that others don’t.

And, if you’ve seen the movie August Rush you’ll understand what I mean when I say that musicians often hear music that goes unnoticed by the general public.

Here’s a couple of  clips,  just in case you haven’t seen it:
(and if you haven’t I highly recommend you do)

So today’s assignment for feeding and managing your imagination is to take  your camera and look for the interesting things you pass every day. This time look at it with new eyes! Then photograph and capture them. And feel free to include a link below to anything interesting you happen to notice.

Try to capture the interesting textures, the way the shadows dance upon the wall, and those things that others often don’t notice.

Pay attention to life’s rhythms!

Image Courtsey of H. Koppdelaney's Photostream

All of us imagine all the time.  After all, it is our imagination that allows us to play out all the possible scenarios laid out before us and decide on a course of action.

“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.”  ~ Gloria Steinman

Our imagination determines for the most part how we react to nearly every situation. Our imagination allows us to take our experiences, and all the things we learn and connect them together in new and meaningful ways.  And our imagination allows us to enjoy life more fully.

However, there is a problem…

Although imagination is something we do constantly very few of us have been taught how to effectively manage our imagination.

Imagination in school, was for the most part, limited.  Even in art classes you were probably were taught that elephants are not pink and that you had to draw houses “this way” if you wanted to do it the “right way.”

As children we were told stop daydreaming and get back on task.  But then, suddenly, when the clock hit the magical hour we were told to turn our imagination back on for our creative writing projects.

Throughout our school years we were taught plenty of facts, and then asked to recall those facts. And now we are asked to solve problems based on all the information we learned.

No wonder, as adults, many people rely primarily our synthetic imagination.

It allows us to take those pieces and put them together in a new way. It rearranges the existing thought patterns into new patterns.  It is through the power of synthetic imagination that new products are developed.

All of us have synthetic imagination, and it’s a good thing we do.  If we didn’t we be much like a computer that stores facts, and does nothing with them unless directed to.

The other type of imagine is creative imagination. Creative imagination refers to our ability to develop completely new and different ideas.  It’s the ability to take concepts and put them together to solve  problems and achieve  goals. This type of imagination often manifests itself in the form of hunches and inspiration. And it is creative imagination that is responsible for many of the great breakthroughs in medicine, science, technology, art, music, literature.

Both creative and synthetic imagination are important, and both types of imagination play a vital role in your life.

The most successful people feed their synthetic imagination  on a regular basis, and they deliberately train themselves to tap into their creative imagination.

• So what can you do to broaden your imagination?

• What can you do to increase the power of your imagination?

Stay tuned for tips, insight, and resources  on how to manage your imagination…