The Power of Daydreaming
Moving beyond boredom into creative thinking
Last Saturday morning we had a power outage for the first time in 30 years of living in our home.
Wait, what?
No coffee?
No emails?
I know, first-world problems. But that didn’t stop me from scanning my brain to see what I might be able to do to feel “productive” as I waited for the power to come back.
In other words: to stave off the dreaded boredom.
How do we convince ourselves to be still and wait out the discomfort of doing nothing, when our whole being wants to do anything but nothing?
Studies have shown that doing nothing is actually highly productive. The trick is staying in that messy middle phase long enough to experience the more generative phase that follows: daydreaming.
In other words: tapping into a power source that comes from within.
Author of Bored and Brilliant, Manoush Zomorodi, breaks it down for us. In “This Boredom Could be a Chance for a Great Reset” she helps us move beyond boredom into daydreaming, explaining to GQ staff writer, Clay Skipper, what happens creatively in the brain when we do:
“What happens after you cross through the boredom, through the threshold to daydreaming, you activate this network in your brain called the default mode. Not only is the default mode the place where we do our most original thinking and we come up with creative ideas and problem-solving, it's also where we do something called autobiographical planning. That’s essentially looking back at your life, remembering the highs and lows and writing the story, making sense of all the things that have happened to you and how you got to this very moment.
Then we project into the future and we start to imagine different scenarios. We start to choose the ones that we like and we set goals and work backwards to where we are right now, and figure out how we're going to achieve those goals and what steps we'll need to take. This time traveling in your brain—from your past, to your future, back to the present—it’s about a sense of possibility, if you allow it to be. I think that's really powerful.1
If you found that explanation a bit hard to follow — perhaps even leading you back into that glazy state of boredom — I might suggest a shortcut to moving beyond boredom into the playground of the creative mind: bring your awareness to the part of you that is infinitely wise: your heart.
What does your heart need or want right now?
Daydream on that.
Ahhh 💕
Bored or daydreaming?
Speaking of creativity…
Today’s photo comes from “Fashioned by Sargent,” a show featuring an extraordinary collection of paintings by John Singer Sargent currently on display at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Just look at those hands and those exuberant fabrics! What Sargent was able to convey with the slightest of brush strokes is simply breathtaking.
And that expression. She really does look like she’s daydreaming. Or is she bored? You be the judge.
ever since I've started following you and taking your courses/reading your books I start my day outdoors with my coffee and find stillness. Most days I am successful. you have taught me to ALLOW anything that rises up and I can't thank you enough for this gift! There is so much beauty beyond the boredom
I’ve been looking at a vital piece of my bird feeder lying on the ground for days. Even though there was still some ice on the deck, I ventured out with my walking sticks to fix the situation. Now I’m watching the tufted titmice gorging on sunflower seeds. My heart feels so much lighter! Oh... and today is one month and one day since my complete knee replacement surgery!