How has thinking big improved your life?
Thinking creatively has improved my life more than thinking big. I have used creativity to solve problems, find the best use for things, and to reframe situations. Here’s one example where my imagination helped me, when my brain child was cast aside on an assignment. The entire post, if you want to read it, is called The Element of Imagination and Its Hope for Helping Us Develop Toughness With Compassion and Artful Flair, and is available on my Minoo Jha Life Strategies blog. Here is the excerpt regarding my brain child being cast aside, and how I used my imagination to shake myself out of my negative thoughts and feelings, and to be a bigger person. Using our imagination to reframe a situation… Any situation can be reframed with the help of our imagination. On one assignment, I pulled out all the stops to design new commission statements, and develop a new Excel model to do commissions. However, when I was passing control of my job to the commissions analyst who was to take my place, he and the new company controller decided to abandon my model and create their own model. It was a blow to my self-esteem, and hard to stomach. We want it to be hard for anyone to fill our shoes. We want our absence to cause pain. We want our brain children to be cherished. So my initial thoughts and feelings were all negative. But then, I started meditating, and it helped me transcend these negative thoughts. 3 Deer at a Stream I suddenly had this vision of self-esteem being a stream of water, and the new analyst, new controller, and myself all as deer drinking from the stream. I had had my turn at the stream. Now it was theirs. When I had to prove myself, the stream of self-esteem was there for me. Now it was someone else’s time to shine. Later on, it would be someone else’s time, still. From the moment this image entered my mind – my mindset was different. It was hard to say if I held this image - of the 3 deer drinking from a stream - or the image held me. But during my last weeks at the company, I cheerfully finished up my assignment, and continuously encouraged, praised and supported the new analyst and the Controller. Now years later, I feel a warm glow towards them. Tuli Kupferberg says: “When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge. When I was able to escape the normal way of thinking it was almost that I saw all the characters in the scenario in a different alternate world” This is what happened to me. I entered an alternate world. And my imagination helped me get there. I now realize situations can exist in many different spheres, and our imagination can take us to a different sphere. So if you find yourself needing to be a bigger person, try to use your imagination to reframe the situation, and to elevate your thoughts and feelings to a different sphere. It worked for me. No reason why you shouldn’t give it a try. It could work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment