Ideal Life

‘We are who and where we are
because we have first imagined it’
- Donald Curtis

Somewhere inside we know what kind of life we long for. We have flickers of an ideal life – a wonderful partner, meaningful vocation, plenty of money, excellent health, a great home, lots of free time – and it’s almost too painfully absent to contemplate. So we don’t. We don’t think it’s possible or that we’re good enough for such things. So we shelve our fantasy fragments and settle for what we have, never believing it could be much different.

But in doing so, we may be missing an opportunity. Our natural ability to imagine and fantasise gives us the potential to make great things happen. Imagination leads the way in how we create our life. Where else does a work of art or a feat of engineering begin but in our imagination? Indeed, ‘we are who and where we are because we have first imagined it’. If we can’t even imagine where we want to go, we go nowhere, or get blindly swept up with someone else’s imperatives. Worse still, we drift into a painful netherworld based on our unconscious negative beliefs and imaginings.

To harness the positive creative power of our imagination, we need to be aware of our beliefs about our self and the world. Our beliefs are only ideas picked up and reinforced throughout our lives, a pattern of thinking that helps us feel comfortable. Beliefs have no real substance and yet they strongly influence the creation of our reality.

That’s why it’s possible to suspend our habitual beliefs and reach somewhere else in our imagination. We can loosen our beliefs about what is possible, and strengthen our positive tone. It’s excellent practise to give our beliefs a good stretch every now and then. We can play with them, see them for what they are, show them who is boss.

The Ideal Life Exercise uses these principles. It’s a chance to play at stretching our ideas about how our life could be towards something utterly amazing. We suspend disbelief and allow ourselves to reach way into perfection. It doesn’t matter if we don’t think we can ever achieve this kind of life. In the process of the exercise we free ourselves up and reveal what really moves us.

Later Thrivecraft exercises deal with making things real. For now, forget being practical and shoot for the stars. Have a go:-

Ideal Life Exercise

Take a leap of imagination into a life that is totally wonderful and ideal for you. What would your life be like if everything about it was totally fantastic and in line with your deepest values? How would you live? How would you be spending your time? Where would you be? Who would be with you? What kind of relationships would you have? How would you express yourself?

Look back over your Life Appraisal to remind yourself of the areas of your life you can include. Check on the aspirations you noted in each area. Can you make them bigger and better? Be bold.

Allow all those fantasy fragments to come together into a stunning scenario of personal perfection. Let rip. Let your soul sing. It’s so exhilarating to just give yourself permission, to have a real stretch. This is about what you would love to be true, not what you believe is achievable. Suspend all ideas about what’s possible and go for it.

Describe your ideal life vividly using all your senses. How would you feel? How would you look, your home look? How would your environment sound and taste and smell? Make it as luscious and colourful and as over the top as you like.

Use entirely positive language. Describe what you want, not what you don’t want.

Write in the present tense as though it’s all actually happening now. Create a reality and step inside it. Enjoy.

A bit stuck?

1. Try doing a picture or collage of your ideal life. Use big paper, words, colour, cut up magazines, anything that moves you.

2. Ask yourself what you would do with your life if you won the lottery, or only had a year left to live, or what you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail.

3. If you have a lot of resistance, objections and cynical comments in your head, write them down. Leave them aside to deal with later. (If these objections still prevent you from getting on, write a contradicting positive affirmation beside each objection. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, just blatantly contradict the objection with something positive. Try on the opposite, positive view for size.)