Daydream Your Way to a Better Life

 Daydream¹ Your Way to a Better Life

One of the most popular self-help books ever written on depression is Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns. He identifies several cognitive² distortions the depressed³ suffer from. One of them is Overgeneralization. This is the practice of “viewing a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat.” If you lose your job, suddenly you are worthless and you will never amount to anything. If you look at your 401(k) statement and you’ve lost 35% of your nest egg, suddenly you’ll never be able to retire and you’ll have to be a Walmart greeter when you’re 85 years old. When things are bad, it feels like everything is bad and they’ll always be bad.

One of the simplest, most enjoyable and most effective ways to improve your outlook and rise above the depressing headlines is to daydream — visualize⁴ a better life. In Robert Cooper’s book, Get Out of Your Own Way, he says “Brain scans show that simply imagining a complex and compelling goal will actually fire the same neurons that will be required to actually achieve the goal.” Daydreaming⁵ is definitely not just for kids. Spend a few minutes every day imagining your ideal life. You don’t have to write anything down if you don’t want to, just visualize it. Make it as real as you can.

If you want to get fancy, I recommend you DreamBoard. It’s something I’ve written about in The Six Day Financial Makeover as well as my free ebook, Plan Z, but I think it bears repeating. DreamBoarding is the process of creating a visual scrapbook of your ideal life. Why pictures? Our mind thinks and remembers in pictures. We remember faces but forget names. When we read a story, we create a visual image of the characters and the situation. The great communicators use language to create mental images. A picture can communicate much more quickly and efficiently⁶ than a word or a thought.

In addition to thinking about taking a trip to Fiji, isn’t it more powerful to also look at a picture of a Fijian beach with crystal clear water and palm trees? Does the picture improve your mood more than the thoughts alone? The added benefit of creating a collage⁷ of pictures is that they can remind you of your ideal life every time you glance at your DreamBoard.

Here’s how it works. As you imagine your perfect future, jot⁸ down what it looks like. Then cut out a picture or two from a magazine that represents this life. Take your time finding pictures that get your juices flowing. If one of your goals is to own a new Porsche, buy a car magazine or visit your local dealership⁹ and pick up a brochure.

Your ideal life shouldn’t just be filled with stuff, either. It should include things you want to accomplish and ideas about the person you want to be. While it is easier to find pictures representing tangible¹⁰ things you want to own, you can also locate pictures representing what you want to accomplish and who you want to be.

If you want to earn a Ph.D., cut out a picture of a diploma. If you want to learn how to play the piano, cut out a picture of a piano or of someone playing the piano. If you want to work fewer hours, take a picture of your office with a clock at 3:30PM with you noticeably absent. You can find a picture for almost anything. For example, one of the things I want to accomplish is to go on an African Safari¹¹. There are a lot of places I could have gone to get pictures of Africa, but I chose to cut out pictures from an adventure travel brochure because that was more accurate for my dream.

You can even find pictures representing the person you want to be. Do you want to become a better parent? Cut out a picture of your kids on vacation or doing their homework. Do you want to be a better communicator? Cut out a picture of Barack Obama. Bottom line, no matter what your ideal life, you can find a picture to capture or express it.

Have fun with this exercise — get creative. While it might sound slightly silly-like making a collage in elementary school — using pictures will bring your ideal life to life.

Once you’ve cut out all of the pictures, it is time to create your DreamBoard. You have a couple of options. You can either create a portable goal collage by using a three-ring binder¹² or you could create a large poster board with pictures representing all of your goals. There is nothing more powerful than looking at a collection of pictures that represent your ideal life.

Put your DreamBoard where you’ll see it often. Invest a few minutes of your other 8 hours every day to look at it. Think about what the pictures represent and visualize living it. Then get out there and make it happen!

1 daydream   

v.做白日梦，幻想

参考例句：

• Boys and girls daydream about what they want to be.孩子们遐想着他们将来要干什么。
• He drifted off into another daydream.他飘飘然又做了一个白日梦。

2 cognitive   

adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的

参考例句：

• As children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。
• The cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。

3 depressed   

adj.沮丧的，抑郁的，不景气的，萧条的

参考例句：

• When he was depressed,he felt utterly divorced from reality.他心情沮丧时就感到完全脱离了现实。
• His mother was depressed by the sad news.这个坏消息使他的母亲意志消沉。

4 visualize   

vt.使看得见，使具体化，想象，设想

参考例句：

• I remember meeting the man before but I can't visualize him.我记得以前见过那个人，但他的样子我想不起来了。
• She couldn't visualize flying through space.她无法想像在太空中飞行的景象。

5 daydreaming   

v.想入非非，空想( daydream的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Stop daydreaming and be realistic. 别空想了，还是从实际出发吧。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Bill was sitting and daydreaming so his mother told him to come down to earth and to do his homework. 比尔坐着空想， 他母亲要他面对现实，去做课外作业。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

6 efficiently   

adv.高效率地，有能力地

参考例句：

• The worker oils the machine to operate it more efficiently.工人给机器上油以使机器运转更有效。
• Local authorities have to learn to allocate resources efficiently.地方政府必须学会有效地分配资源。

7 collage   

n.拼贴画；v.拼贴；把……创作成拼贴画

参考例句：

• A collage of coloured paper covers a table top.一副彩纸拼贴画盖在桌面上。
• He has used a mixture of mosaic,collage and felt-tip pen.他混合使用了马赛克、拼贴画和毡头笔。

8 jot   

n.少量；vi.草草记下；vt.匆匆写下

参考例句：

• I'll jot down their address before I forget it.我得赶快把他们的地址写下来，免得忘了。
• There is not a jot of evidence to say it does them any good.没有丝毫的证据显示这对他们有任何好处。

9 dealership   

n.商品特许经销处

参考例句：

• The car dealership has a large inventory of used cars. 这家汽车经销商拥有数量庞大的二手车。
• A key to this effort is the experience in the dealership. 达到这个成果的关键是销售的体验。

10 tangible   

adj.有形的，可触摸的，确凿的，实际的

参考例句：

• The policy has not yet brought any tangible benefits.这项政策还没有带来任何实质性的好处。
• There is no tangible proof.没有确凿的证据。

11 safari   

n.远征旅行(探险、考察)；探险队，狩猎队

参考例句：

• When we go on safari we like to cook on an open fire.我们远行狩猎时，喜欢露天生火做饭。
• They went on safari searching for the rare black rhinoceros.他们进行探险旅行，搜寻那稀有的黑犀牛。

12 binder   

n.包扎物，包扎工具；[法]临时契约；粘合剂；装订工

参考例句：

• The cloth flower snaps on with a special binder.这布花是用一种特殊的粘合剂固定住的。
• Purified water was used as liquid binder.纯净水作为液体粘合剂。