Daydream your way to greatness

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Daydream your way to greatness

Written by: Donna Ann Peck 545 views

Daydreaming is a way to give thought to what is important to you. Before undertaking a project, do you think about the outcome you want? Of all the productivity tips out there, the one that can make a dramatic difference in your life is to come from your desires. You’ll have more fun and be more productive if you devote yourself to projects you dream about!

To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan… believe… act. —Alfred A. Montapert

Quiz

Are you producing work you care about?

Never
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Very Often

What do you want? Musing about this question brings up a reality you desire. Do you have lofty goals? Daydreaming shows you what you could create through your effort and talent. It appeals to the part of you that wants to produce something noteworthy. Though he calls it vision, David Allen identifies daydreaming as one of the five steps for gaining a clear perspective. visualize-the-outcome

Daydreaming got me where I am today. I make a living from my creative ideas. I’ve been lucky enough to stumble into the life I dreamed of as a girl. But was it luck? My mother used to say of me, “She always has her head in the clouds.” I attribute my good fortune to good old-fashioned daydreaming.

“I call that man rich,” Henry James’s Ralph Touchett observes in “Portrait of a Lady,” “who can satisfy the requirements of his imagination.” Here are the guidelines for satisfying your imagination.

Daydream

Find a block of time when you are not going to be interrupted. Put aside everything you’re working on at the moment. Take out a piece of paper or open a file and daydream about what you desire.

Write what you want (three pages).
Pick a desire and put it at the top of a new page.
Write the reasons you want this. (One page)
Write the reasons you believe you will have what you want. (One page)
Repeat these steps for two more desires.

You’ll approach the project with confidence and certainly because in your imagination you’ve already seen the project, or the house you want to buy, as a successful reality. It will feel like déjà vu.

Capture in a trusted system everything you’re daydreaming about

You need a tried-and-true system, one that allows you to do the things in the world that you want. Gustave Flaubert said, “Be steady and well-ordered in your life so you can be fierce and original in your work.” One of the biggest fears for creative people is that some brilliant idea will get lost because they didn’t write it down and put it in a safe place.

Choreographer Twyla Tharp writes, “I don’t worry about that because I know where to find it. It’s all in the box…..the kind you can buy at Office Depot for transferring files. I start every dance with a box. I write the project name on the box, and as the piece progresses I fill it up with every item that went into the making of the dance. This means notebooks, news clippings, CDs, videotapes of me working alone in my studio, videos of the dancers rehearsing, books and photographs and pieces of art that may have inspired me.”

Let it compost

Ideas need to incubate. Call it your someday maybe project, or a work-in-progress. Take Merlin Mann’s advice: “don’t try to turn it into a real thing before it’s ready.” Having someday maybe projects out in front of your conscious mind could add many wonderful adventures to your life and work.

Work with intention

How often do you visualize the outcome of a meeting before heading into it? The most graphic representation of this occurred when I walked into a meeting not knowing what to expect or what I wanted. The publisher asked for my input on a marketing plan to sell a guidebook series. Things started coming at me from all sides.

I stared down at my hands for a moment to gain perspective on the situation, asking myself two questions:

What is true right now?

What do I want to be true?

I wanted an $8,000 budget and I wanted Francesca assigned to this project. Working with intention, you’ll discover, draws clarity and results.

I also set intentions for various segments of my workday. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in a project that I lose my grip on what’s important. When I’m no longer making decisions about where to put my attention, I catch myself and stop to check in with my original vision.

When you are clear about what you want it’s not necessary to keep yourself on track. You will have no interest in all those things that have nothing to do with what you want.

Daydreaming gives you clarity on your goals and dreams. As you put your attention on what is important to you, you’ll produce work you care about. When it comes down to it, it’s better to change jobs than turn your back on your dreams.