Engaging Your Imagination

Engaging Your Imagination
by Susan West

Imagination is defined by Webster’s dictionary, as the act or power of forming a mental image of something not present to the senses or never before wholly perceived in reality; a creation of the mind. All things are possible. As Wallace D. Wattles states in his book Financial Success: Harnessing the Power of Creative Thought,

“There is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. A person can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance, can cause the thing he thinks to be created.”

So think of this in terms of your business, a new service is created, a department is organized, a book is written. In our personal lives, a new house is designed and built, a new oak cabinet made, a painting created. All of these projects began with an idea, a thought. How do you become a leader demonstrating creativity? For most of us our imagination has been stifled. We must learn to uncover it again. At birth we had 100% imagination, it has been said that we have only 4% usage of imagination by age 7. Studies as referenced in Success at Life, “show remarkably, even shockingly, that in the first five years of life we as children are told no over fifty thousand times and yes only five thousand times. This foundation of conditioning is how children are trained to conform and succeed. The minute percentage of the victims who escape this fate become the rare minority that go and change the world.”

Would you like to be one of the rare minorities that make a difference? Even in your own business? This all begins with asking a question. Asking a question engages our imagination. And taking time to think, taking time to let our mind formulate answers to questions like – How may I better serve? How can I bring value to this situation? What can I do to show I care? – is very powerful.

Here is a simple way to engage your imagination to solve a problem or be creative:

1) pull out a blank sheet of paper,
2) write your problem or whatever you want to accomplish in the form of a question at the top of the page, and
3) jot down whatever comes to mind. Just let the ideas flow. One thought will lead to another. You will be amazed at what you can create!