Hi Elpha friends! As someone who leans more towards the "practical" side, I have to be intentional about exercising my imagination. I sent the following email to my list last week and thought I'd share here, too.
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Ever since I listened to Nic Antoinette's podcast on Reimagining Retirement with Erin Axelrod, I've been thinking about how our imaginations (or lack thereof) shape our lives.
The episode explores the question:
What if we lived in a world where personal security didn't require vast individual savings? ( sigh…)
And while this is absolutely worth exploring, what I really want to talk about is the reimagining part.
Getting people to think differently is a big part of my job.
If we're unable to ask ourselves “What if…? without immediately shutting it down with “what's practical” and what we already “know to be true,” how are we to come up with new solutions to whatever is keeping us up at night?
We can't.
Our brains will always default to what we know to be TRUE:
- “My family has always lived in NY. I can't move.”
- “50 is too old to start a new career.”
- “I can't wear shorts.” (here's what Olympian Ilona Maher says about that)
- “I've worked too hard to get into this role. I need to stay for at least 2 years."
To break out of these patterns of thinking, we have to re-engage our imaginations!
I want to share some of the things I've been doing to re-engage mine:
MAKING ART + GRANNY-CRAFTING:
I've put making art back on my schedule and I'm loving it.
This week I'm signed up for this free Summer Creative Retreat. I find that whether it's on my ipad using Procreate or getting out my watercolors, creating something is a great way to practice playing around.
Something even more simple: grabbing a coloring book and intentionally choosing to use “not correct” colors. Why can't the sky be green?
GOING TO DEATH CAFE:
Yes, it sounds morbid, but the more I think about my death, the more intentional I am about living a good life. Death Cafes happen all over the world (I bet there's one in your area!). It's where a group of people get together to discuss death. If you listen to Happiness Lab, you may have caught the episode “A Matter of Life or Death” where Dr. Laurie Santos talks about her positive experience with Death Cafe and thinking regularly about death.
CHANGING UP MY PHYSICAL LOCATION:
A couple ways you might do this:
1) actually moving your physical body to a new location
2) redecorating and moving furniture around
I'm someone who is greatly impacted by her environment. This weekend I decided to walk the dogs on a new trail and it set a completely different tone for the day.
And last week I changed up my home office to add a standing art desk, an easel, a place for my sewing machine, and a place for seed-starting. It's all of my favorite things in one place.
LISTENING TO STAND-UP COMEDY:
Most of my favorite comedians are storytellers. Laughing with them puts me in a good mood and gets me to view my life through the lenses of “this will be funny someday” and “this will make a great story.”
DOING QUICK IMPROV EXERCISES:
You don't have to take an improv class to get the benefits (although as someone who has taken these classes, I highly recommend checking one out). A simple exercise you can do to get your imagination going:
- Look around the room you're in and list 10 things you see out loud. Don't overthink it.
- Now, do it again but instead of listing what you actually see, call them something else. For example: I see a plant and I call it a chair. I see a lamp and I call it a plane. Do this for 10 things. (I count on my fingers.)
- That's it! The point is to feel silly and get out of your head. It's also a great way to become present to the moment.
MINDMAPPING:
I'm a visual person and I've found that creating a visual map of ideas can be a helpful way for me to explore without feeling committed. I do this on paper or my ipad. (I've been using Goodnotes and love it).
I start by putting my central focus in the middle, circling it, and then drawing branches to additional themes/ideas, with branches coming from them. It also helps me make connections I did not previously see.
PLAYING AROUND WITH POSSIBILITY QUESTIONS:
Take your challenge and ask yourself these questions:
- What's the obvious thing to do?
- What's the easiest thing to do?
- What's the boldest thing to do?
- What's the fastest thing to do?
- What's the slowest thing to do?
- What's the scariest thing to do?
- What's the hardest thing to do?
- What would be a fun thing to do?
- What if I did nothing?
- What am I willing to do?
- What do I want to do?
If you'd like to sign up for my weekly email, you can do so at lindseylathrop.com.
~ Lindsey
