Let Your Imagination Take You Places

Last week, we spoke about how we feel our emotions. Where in our body we feel emotion and how we react to those feelings and emotions. How did that go for you? Have you become more aware of your body and your emotions? How has noticing those feelings changed how you react?

The next and final piece to planning is how to mentally problem solve. When a dilemma with multiple possible solutions presents itself. How do you determine which path to take?

Let’s use a simple example.Greg is driving down the street. He knows where he is trying to go. The goal is to go straight for four blocks and then make a left and drive seven blocks and stop at the green house on the corner. All is going well until one of the streets that Greg needs to drive on is closed. What does he do?

The first step is to figure out all of the options. In our case, Greg can turn around and go home. A second option is to take a detour. A third option is to pop open Waze and see what they suggest.

Now that the options are figured out, each option has to be played out either with a mind picture or verbally.

Option one, Greg turns around and goes home. He says to himself, “If I turn around and go home, I will have wasted the time that I have already spent on trying to accomplish my goal and I will have not advanced toward my goal.”

Option two, Greg thinks about the streets in the area. He knows that the streets in this area are not in a grid. He also doesn’t see any detour signs and is not confident he can find his way on his own.

Option three, Greg says, “If I pop open Waze, I won’t get lost and I can get where I am going with the least delay.”

Now that Greg has played out all of the options in his mind and has analyzed each of the options, it is time for him to synthesize all the information he has gathered and all of the background information to make a decision.

Greg realizes that option one would cause him frustration for wasting all of his time and energy, so that is not a good choice, option two would overwhelm him because he may get lost, so in this situation option three makes the most sense.

This framework works for any decision that we have to make in life.

• Think/ state the options.

• Play out each of the options in our mind/ verbally.

• Synthesize all of the information that you have and choose the best course of action.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!

I look forward to hearing from you!