27 Apr How your imagination could change your life?

”The first ability of mankind is not will, but imagination”

Emile Coué

We were born with the ability to dream. As a child, we were encouraged to develop our imagination! Our perception of the world was limitless… But soon, marks, competition, education, life in society, exams, the choice of an orientation, the search of a job and the need to earn our life brought us to be careless with this part of our personality, to have a reasonable and formatted life.

Today, particularly in the world of work, we are more and more conditioned to be productive and profitable. The media inform us, entertain us and make us consume. There’s little room for imagination, and for most of people, the inner child is silenced.

Except for the artists, who continue to develop and express their creativity in adulthood, childhood his the only part of your life where imagination is a highlighted quality. In the world of work, where economic considerations and profit take on well-being most of the time, your capacity of dreaming will rarely make you a better employee in the eyes of your hierarchy!

This is one of the reasons why, today, many people are uncomfortable with a part of their personal or professional life. It’s like a feeling of suffocation. A little voice is asking them « what have you done with your dreams…? », « Are you ok with your life…? ». Those people have just stopped dreaming. This important part of their personality when they were children, is now censored.

Each choice that we make corresponds to the satisfaction of a need at the time. We take decisions according to what seems to be the best option when we take it. But life is in motion, it’s a constant evolution. What was true yesterday, may not be true anymore. So, what about tomorrow…?

Frequently, someone who feels uncomfortable with its personal or professional life doesn’t allow itself to imagine how it could be. Because if you do that, you take « the risk » to go out your confort zone, or let’s say your « known » zone, even if it’a not confortable at all! You may have the reflex to consider the worst consequences, to overestimate the risks, and to take only the potential negative effects of changing into account. Fear and culpability would be powerful brakes that would annihilate any possibility of evolution.

But, by letting the situation stagnate, you take a much more important risk: to feel more and more unease, with potential consequences much more serious as time passes (burn-out, nervous breakdown, …)

”Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere”

Albert Einstein

A thought, positive or negative, constitutes reality for us, so it has many chances to become real. Successful people, and those who reach their objectives, allow themselves to imagine the future in a positive way. Consequently, this makes it possible. We call it « self-fulfilling prophecy » and imagination constitutes its energy.

Indeed, the self-fulfilling prophecy involves a modification of the behavior, which leads to new actions that make possible what the prophecy had foreseen. What was just a possibility among plenty of others becomes reality, by the focus of the mind on this possibility.

Let’s take an exemple: you don’t like your job anymore. Your motivation is decreasing: you may think you don’t have anything to learn? You may have the feeling that your competences are not highlighted enough? Or the feeling that your company doesn’t give you career prospects… If you suffer the situation but don’t do anything to change it, you take the risk to see the situation degenerate and to fall into a spiral of failure. Your managers will quickly notice your disinterest, you may face conflicts with your colleagues or your clients. You will be more and more late or absent… And it’s likely that your unease quickly overflows into the others fields of your life.

But it’s not fate!

You can choose to consider things differently. Even if you know that you will not throw it all away overnight, you are free to imagine another scenario, a positive one, by visualizing yourself in a new job, in a new company, or earning money from your secret passion… Imagine your perfect future: success, meetings, a new apartment in the city of your dreams… Everything is possible!

These liberating thoughts will be a huge breath of fresh air and you’ll feel better immediately.

You’ll be taken by a positive energy, conducive to new ideas. You’ll be more attentive to opportunities, you’ll start to think to possibilities of training in your company, you’ll devote some time to your passion, you’ll meet the right persons (as if by chance)…

So, you’ll do everything possible, without realizing it, to make what you’ve been dreaming possible! This positive state of mind, fed with your imagination, will take you to make new decisions and bold choices. Changing will be without any effort, because you’ll feel like walking on the path of your life, step by step, until the next chapter of your existence.

By watching your future through another lens, you’ll trust him, and more important, you’ll trust… yourself.

”The thing about future is not to anticipate it, but to make it happen”

Antoine de St Exupéry

So, concretely, how to do that?

The first thing, to plan for the future in a positive way, is to take care of the present! Devoting time for yourself, playing sports, swimming, walking in the nature, drawing, painting, singing, listening music,… everything that makes you feel good and relaxed, makes your mind available for the visualization of a positive future, and prepared to build your « ideal state ». In a coaching session, it means deep breathing. Sophrology also uses exercices of deep relaxation, between waking and sleeping, towards the same goal. All those techniques are good for positive thinking.

Trying, day after day, to think in a positive way is essential. It takes time and rigour: did you notice how we generally see the negative side of a situation, how often we complain and denigrate ourselves? Focus on your words and ban « I’m fed up with this this f***ing rain! », « I’m so stupid… », « I’ll never make it… ». Try to see the positive side of each situation (even when it’s hard) and be as nice as possible with yourself and other people.

Another way to dream consists in taking exemple on inspiring, successful or bold people. Think about those men and women who built an incredible life from nothing, who took control upon their fate and made it with the impossible. Become soaked with their exemplary daring and always keep in mind this sentence from Antoine de St Exupéry: « You can always achieve what someone else has achieved before ». There are so many examples!

To sum up: devote time for yourself as often as possible, listen to your inner child and be attentive to  his/her needs. Without any doubt, he or she must have many things to tell you, and many dreams and ambitions to make real…

So, whatever is your situation, whatever the reasons of your dissatisfaction are, whatever your doubts and your regrets, don’t forget that each day is a new opportunity to change what must be changed!

The key is inside you: it’s your imagination.