The Power of Our Imagination

“Our imagination it is our greatest ally . . . Imagination is a very, very powerful thing. It literally invents the path before you.”

–Glen Hansard

Texting, Facebook, video games, and other devices that capture our attention, can slowly dull one of our most powerful tools that is needed to create the life we most desire – our imagination.

As a child, you may have had an imaginary friend. You may have dreamed grand adventures of flying like Superman, or sipping tea with the Queen of England. Wherever your imagination took you, it was an opportunity to step out of the present to create what might be and oh, wasn’t it fun?

While yes, an overactive imagination can drive the belief behind conspiracy theories, distrust in humans and a step into the world of insanity, this is even more reason to welcome balance into our lives, and choose to use our imaginations as a tool of hope to help lead us to a life where we can fulfill our highest potential and satiate our passions.

“Watch your thoughts; they become words. Watch your words; they become actions. Watch your actions; they become habits. Watch your habits; they become character. Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.” - Frank Outlaw

You may be wondering, when and how can our imaginations be sparked? The opportunities are endless: day-to-day experiences, traveling, books, music, word/mind games, films, conversations with others, lectures, classes, photographs, art, history, new experiences – the list goes on . . .

Now that you are an adult, your imagination is still capable of being uber-creative, and the most exciting news is you have even more potential to act on what pops into your mind. So keep a journal, record your thoughts, wildest dreams and most daring hopes, and then, dare to believe that you can make what you’ve imagined become your reality.

Want to become a fashion magazine editor? Start writing and attending fashion shows in your area. Want to serve as a senator for your state? Start serving on various local councils and give time back to your community in an effort to better your local neighborhood. Want to live in France? Begin to learn the language. In other words, what you dare to imagine may one day just be the beginning of your very own legend that inspires others one day to chase their dreams.


Have a look at five benefits to letting your imagination remain an active participant in your adult life:

Benefits of an Active Imagination:

1. Squashes Fears

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” -Plutarch

When imaginations are fueled by hope and a desire to create something better, or to become someone better, even if we’ve never accomplished it ourselves or seen an example that resembles exactly what we imagine, we begin to weaken the hold our fears have over our direction in life and instead work toward what might be.

2. Boosts Intelligence

If you continue to conjure solutions to problems that currently exist, your drive to prove how that solution might work forces you to educate yourself, seek out information, thus boosting what you know about any given topic.

3. Forever Young

“Our imagination is the only limit to what we can hope to have in the future.” -Charles F. Kettering

Curiosity may not have been a cat’s best friend, but it certainly prolongs the life of humans. By remaining curious about the world around you, no matter what your age, you keep exercising your brain which reduces the atrophy that can typically take effect as we age if we don’t exercise our most amazing muscle. So continue to dream and imagine a world even better than the one you grew up in, and not only will you create the possibility of an amazing life through fulfillment of your dreams, but you’ll be healthy and able to enjoy it when it materializes.

4. Develops Empathy

In J.K. Rowling’s 2008 Harvard commencement address. she advises graduates to find the beauty in failure as well as strengthen their ability to tap into their imaginations as it allows us the ability to empathize with others even when we may not have actually experienced what they are sharing about their lives. When we can imagine ourselves in another person’s shoes, we exercise a more open mind which improves our social interactions. To understand how someone might have felt helps us come to know them on a more intimate level which has the capacity to form a stronger bond.

5. Helps Transform Dreams into Reality

“Our aspirations are our possibilities.” - Robert Browning

When musician Glen Hansard shared his quote above, he was referring to his own vivid imagination . . . the dreams he had for himself when he was a boy of 13 years old playing his guitar at bus stops. He stated that the life he is living now (one of great musical achievements and honors, traveling the world doing what he loves) is precisely what he imagined for himself all those years ago as he strummed away on the street for strangers. In other words, you must imagine it in order to help create it.

“You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization.” 

-Denis Waitley

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Why Not . . . Invest in Your Dreams?

Saving for retirement is an investment for a secure future. A future that provides for you financially, enabling the saver to no longer work when they reach a certain age in their life. In order to accumulate enough savings to retire, time is necessary to allow compound interest to work. Discipline is also necessary to take out a certain amount of money each month.

If we know that investments in the financial realm take time to blossom and grow, why should pursuing dreams that we wish to materialize and change permanently how we live be any different? In Rory Vaden’s book Take the Stairs, he speaks about the three “currencies” that are necessary in order to invest in our dreams, and why doing so helps assure that once we reach our dreams we will be less likely to let them fail.

The Three Currencies:

1. TIME
In order to achieve what it is we have set out to attain, we must be willing to put in the time to make the change occur. Losing weight, earning a graduate’s diploma, raising healthy, respectful and kind children, are each goals that take time. The weight doesn’t just fall off because we will to do so, a master’s degree will not magically appear on the wall and children are quite profoundly affected by how they are nurtured on a consistent basis for a long period of time. In other words, the test of determining how badly you want something is quickly ascertained when you continue to put the time in to make it happen.

2. MONEY
Entrepreneurship takes courage, perseverance and confidence in your product, but it also takes money. Whether taking out a small business loan is an option or investing some of your savings, most dreams – changing jobs, paying for college, traveling to Paris and living there as an expatriate, will require an investment of money. Be willing to part with some of it.

3. ENERGY
Often the dreams we wish to pursue put us in a precarious position of conflict with our current life. If we wholeheartedly wish to be successful, a rearranging of priorities must take place. After all, we only have so much energy, and if we become too terribly exhausted, it becomes easier to stop pursuing a dream we had originally fought so hard for.

In the interim as you rearrange your schedule, continue to eat well and exercise regularly as this will help increase your energy as well.

Additionally:

While Vaden speaks of the three currencies that are necessary to attain our dreams, I would also like to add the following things to consider, include or practice as you make your way along the road of investing in your dreams:

1. Be honest with yourself
Why do you really want this dream? Is it because of the extra money, fame and clout you will receive? Or do you genuinely have a passion for what you are doing? If you honestly want to write every day for the rest of your life, if you honestly want to raise children because you desire to nurture young human beings helping them live up to their full potential, or if you honestly wish to pursue a career in medicine because you want to use your intelligence for good, not simply to make money then proceed and begin to invest wisely, then strive forward. But if your intentions are not entirely pure, take a moment to reassess.

2. Be consistent
There will be days when it seems nothing is improving, and you seem no closer to your dream than the day/month/year before. Such a feeling can be disheartening, but just as the a young oak tree doesn’t appear to be growing after having just been planted, with time, consistent watering and sun, it gradually grows into what it is supposed to become – a grand artwork found within nature.

Every day do one small task that helps to move you slightly closer:  say no to a second helping of dessert, compliment your child/spouse/friend by pointing out something specific that you appreciate about them, write a paragraph, read a chapter in a book about your desired major. Whatever you wish to pursue, be relentlessly consistent and you will, in time arrive at your destination.

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