https://www.fastcompany.com/91158807/how-to-get-better-at-having-a-good-imagination?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-intl
When you think of someone having an active imagination, you probably picture a child. Make-believe is among the building blocks of childhood that give kids an innate ability to unleash big ideas.
But what if you recaptured that power? Imagination is as important in adulthood as it is when you’re young, and it’s in your control, says Albert Read, author of The Imagination Muscle: Where Good Ideas Come From (And How to Have More of Them).
“We tend to think of our imagination as something that’s bestowed upon [us] from above,” says Read, former managing director of Condé Nast U.K. “It’s the classical tradition of inspiration, which in Latin means ‘to be breathed upon by the gods.’ I’m saying imagination is in your control, and you have the ability to make it stronger just in the way you work at your health and your emotional well-being.”
Unfortunately, evidence suggests that we are having fewer ideas than we used to and we’ve lost the imagination muscle, Read says, explaining, “We educate ourselves out of the free-flowing, childlike wonder that we have as children. And then we pretty much stay that way all through our lives.”
Creativity is important for positive growth in society. While it takes effort, it’s possible to build your imagination muscle. Here are three things you can do right now.
Adopt a Beginner’s Mindset
Many of the great geniuses in art, science, and business had some of their best ideas in their twenties and early thirties. Read says it’s because they had a beginner’s mindset, which is the ability to see things anew.
“What happens after that is that habits, thought, and worldviews start to set,” he says. “We can combat that by remaining a beginner and trying something new.”
Many Nobel Prize-winning scientists who continued their discoveries later in life were also artists. For example, Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin, was a member of the Chelsea Arts Club in London and experimented with microbial art, painting with bacteria. American particle physicist Richard Feynman published a collection of drawings. And Albert Einstein played the violin.
“They were not very good artists, but that didn’t matter,” Read says. “They had the beginner’s mindset when it came to art and that kept synaptic pathways open to remain able to see the world afresh.”
Be Willing to Fail
Another way to build your imagination is to take the advice from Eleanor Roosevelt, who said “Do something that scares you every day.”
“I’d say, do something that scares your imagination,” Read says. “Don’t worry about it being good, and don’t attach the notion of success immediately to the thing that you’re embarking on. The point is to open your mind and make it see things in a different way.”
Imagination requires you to take risks. “Steve Jobs, David Bowie, William Wordsworth, Virginia Woolf—all these people had unbelievable successes,” Read says. “Between these successes, they had terrible failures. The idea that you have to be consistently successful if you are to bother at all is a misguided notion.”
Failure is a by-product of success, and it’s an important part of being an imaginative person.
Find Your Prime Time
Finally, enhance your imagination by paying attention to the moments in your day when your imagination is most alive and you have the most ideas. Read says he’s the most creative first thing in the morning.
“I make a conscious effort not to check my emails, not to check the news, and not to allow any incoming data to distort that,” he says. “There’s a purity between unconscious sleep and the consciousness of being awake, where you have this wonderful fertile territory to allow your mind to wander and formulate new ideas that it couldn’t do when it’s in the rush of the day.”
Read also advocates for making space for boredom in your life. “Those in-between moments, when you’re standing in a queue or waiting for a bus, rather than taking out your phone and checking Instagram, allow your mind to wander, because that’s when good ideas happen,” he says. “Be attentive to yourself and double down on those precious moments that you don’t necessarily acknowledge or realize are happening.”
Everyone can and should build their imagination because it has the ability to make you happier, Read says, noting, “If you engage with your creative faculties, you are a more alive person.”
What’s more, society needs people to use their imaginations. Whether they’re big or small, societies move forward and civilizations progress through the generation of ideas.
“We can’t let our idea-generation energy subside,” Read says. “We need to create a world that is conducive to the imagination, not one that leaves it to chance or indifference. Imagination is our superpower. . . . It unlocks so many important parts of what it is to be human.”
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