The strength and allure of a growth journey
Does this phrase sound familiar to you: "When this happens, then I can be happy"? When I earn, when I travel, when I do that job, when I live abroad.
Two things happen: we project our hopes onto a future version of ourselves (and perhaps, some responsibilities), and we engage in what the Germans call "Kopfkino," a mental movie.
An often underestimated skill is imagination. Yet, even Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) tells us that it's important to envision ourselves in a "there and then," where we have achieved the goals we set for ourselves.
I read a quote a few days ago: "Not all dreams are worth dreaming, and some will never come true" (by the author of the post, Paolo Borzacchiello). The post made sense, but it was like a punch in the gut for me, and it got me thinking.
We live in the real world all day long: there's a lack of jobs, opportunities, and access to resources for relocating, and not everyone can afford to change careers. This is the rational thinking we have to take into account.
In Transactional Analysis, holding onto reality falls into the "Adult" state. The adult is assertive, conscious, responsible, and rational.
The adult is also quite boring. All children know that.
In "The Little Prince," Saint-Exupéry writes: "Grown-ups love figures. When you describe a new friend to them, they never ask about the essential. They never say: 'What's his voice like? What are his favorite games? Does he collect butterflies?' They ask: 'How old is he? How many brothers does he have? How much does he weigh? How much does his father earn?' Only then do they feel they know him."
The first question that crossed my mind was: how much time do we spend in the adult state? Responsibilities, duties, and work consume a significant portion of our time, perhaps all of it.
And then, I wondered: how much time and space do we allocate to our inner child? The free one? The one who can see animal shapes in the clouds, who can laugh wholeheartedly, who jumps in muddy puddles?
Are we children when we are creative?
In episode number 7 of #coachforbreakfast (only available in italian), I talked about creativity, one of the key skills listed in virtually all job profiles. Creativity is the ability to transform imagination into reality by generating new ideas, concepts, products, or solutions that are original and meaningful.
Children are not only creative. They imagine what does not yet exist. Imagination is the capacity to mentally generate images, ideas, and concepts that do not exist in physical reality. Kopfkino is somewhat a combination of creativity and imagination: the recall or imagination of real or imaginary events that merge into a single "film" in our minds.
When we imagine a different scenario, we create expectations.
Children live in the here and now. If they have expectations, they are magical. Expectations, in the adult world, are neither good nor bad, but they can be the engine of our change. Where's the catch? We build them based on what we know about the world, on our mental map. Each of us has a story, experiences, and we let these guide us in "predicting" the future: if I do this, then that will happen, as I mentioned at the beginning of the article.
Expectations are like the frame of a painting. They delimit our way of seeing and interpreting the world around us.
But in change, we can also experience unexpected effects and consequences, and this can restrain our imagination.
How do we use our imagination in a more "realistic" way?
Here are some suggestions:
1. Built Change: When you're building a change (or a "constructed change" as we discussed with Roberta Zantedeschi), you need to consider all the elements you have at your disposal. For example, when it comes to a career change, I work with my clients to create a feasibility plan, often using the business canvas model. Building means going through a process that involves planning but, above all, collecting: courses, knowledge, books, connections, ideas. Have you ever tried walking 200 meters with a small child? Along the way, they collect memories, ideas, new knowledge, and their world expands.
2. Adaptation: That is, adapting our dream. Dreams are boundless, and perhaps that's their charm. Setting limits to them means shaping our dreams, making them more achievable, and getting closer to their realization. Adaptation also means learning: when we adapt to an environment, we're learning something new. We fear adaptation because we're afraid it means losing a part of ourselves, our essence. Water adapts to the container that holds it while remaining water.
3. Parachute: I've emphasized this many times on the podcast. If you have a plan B, like a job that supports you and allows you to continue building your expertise, deepening your knowledge, and, of course, paying the bills, it can make you mentally stronger when facing a change. It also depends a lot on our personality: some people feel that this anchor is a burden that drags down their motivation, while others, with a plan B, have more strength and energy. The parachute slows down our descent, doesn't prevent us from enjoying the flight, and enables a smooth and safe landing.
4. Patience: "Rome wasn't built in a day." Do you ever find yourself comparing with others on various social media? I do, constantly. "Wow, this person has achieved all this," "they have so many followers, they've achieved these results," etc. "But how long did it take them? Oh, two months?!" As soon as these thoughts, which I know all too well, start, I pause, look at them, and let them go. It's a daily exercise. It takes time. It may take more time for some. This could be due to many reasons: perhaps you're juggling two jobs, there are personal commitments, some building blocks are still missing and require a learning journey, funds may be lacking, etc. Calm down. You're building your version of Rome.
5. Flexibility: This means being ready to adapt to changing circumstances, plan alternative scenarios, or alter the original plan while waiting for a more favorable moment to return to the original design.
And if that were the dream? What if that's what you truly want? If it's true that it's one in a million who makes it, why couldn't it be you? Am I an incurable optimist?
In the words of Saint Exupery from "The Little Prince," he also writes:
"Only children know what they are looking for," said the Little Prince. "They waste time for a rag doll, and it becomes so important that if it's taken away from them, they cry..."
It doesn't matter if it has a drooping eye, is faded, or even broken: the time and care children invest in it make it unique.
Would you like to try imagining alternative scenarios? Discover more about the journey with me here
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