I was talking with someone the other day, and we were laughing about how unreal all the gadgets on the Jetsons show seemed at the time. (For those of you unfamiliar, it was a futuristic space-age cartoon show that came out in 1962.) They had ovens that cooked food instantly, cordless phones where you could see the person when you were talking with them, and a robot for a maid.) Back then, these seemed impossible. Now they are real. Things don’t become real on their own – you have to imagine them first.
How do you do that?
It can be hard to imagine things that either you’ve never seen before or that are so outside your own experience that they seem like fiction. I remember working with one client who wanted her business to be more profitable. We started talking about what that would look like. Their idea of abundance was to not have to worry about which credit card had enough room to cover a change without going over the limit. This was very different from what many of my other clients have talked about when thinking about financial freedom. But it was as far out as she could imagine.
How do sci-fi writers do it?
I really have no idea how any writers do their creative process, but for sci-fi writers, maybe they start out with “wouldn’t it be cool if…” I think doing this takes practice. Once you get comfortable thinking about “what if’s”, you can exercise that muscle more and more, going farther and farther out there into uncharted territory.
Then what?
How does it get from a story to a real thing? Someone hears about it, thinks it’s cool, and goes “how could I make that happen?” They don’t have any doubts about it – just curiosity about the possibilities. Experimenting begins. Lots of trial and error. Then finally! You can see that there’s a way to do this. It might not be there completely yet, but you know it’s getting there.
What if we did this with our lives?
Wouldn’t it be interesting to start doing this for ourselves? Imagining things that haven’t happened before. Getting curious. Trying different things and seeing what works and what doesn’t. Why not give it a whirl? And if you feel a little doubt starting to impede your progress, that’s where I can help. Schedule a free call and we can talk about it.
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