It’s not hard to find yourself in a situation where everyday life seems more or less hollow, boring, and unfulfilling.
Of course, this isn’t because life has to be automatically mundane – or because there are no opportunities out there in today’s world for living an uplifting, imaginative, and exciting life. Rather, it’s just naturally easy to get caught up in the chores and small-scale preoccupations of everyday life, to the extent that we find ourselves going through the motions and failing to keep in sync with more meaningful things.
Here are just a few things you can do in order to help boost your imagination and make life more exciting, both in an everyday sense, and with regards to the sorts of paths, endeavours, and adventures you’re likely to end up exposing yourself to.
Read more fiction (and maybe read less non-fiction)
Statistically speaking, it’s only quite a small proportion of the overall population who actually makes a habit of reading books on a regular basis – and many people who do read frequently will tend to become caught up in reading works of non-fiction only, often because they desire to find some “trick” or “hack” that will aid in their self-development, or in improving their effectiveness, professionally speaking.
Whether you currently don’t read much, or read mostly non-fiction, your life could very likely be enriched dramatically by getting into the habit of reading more fiction, specifically.
Works of written fiction stimulate and develop the imagination like very little else, as they carry you away to dynamic and strange new worlds, and into the lives of other people, while relying on your own imagination to conjure up the images and craft the details of the world you are exploring.
What’s more, novels will frequently have much deeper, richer, and more drawn-out character and plot development than films, and even TV shows.
By reading more fiction – and especially the kind of fiction that makes you feel energised, empowered, and inspired – you will be giving your subconscious mind the “material” it needs to project a bolder and more exciting vision onto the world at large.
You will also likely be surprised by just how exciting and fun it can be to spend a good chunk of your time reading good novels, as well.
If you predominantly find yourself reading lots and lots of non-fiction self-help books, however, there’s a good chance that you might be at risk of making yourself overly preoccupied with all the assorted formulae and strategies out there, that might potentially be used to make some pragmatic change your life. This can sometimes be useful, but often what you really need in order to make a big life change is a richer sense of vision, enthusiasm, and imagination.
Enjoy forms of entertainment media that inspire you – ranging from video games to films
These days, more people regularly play video games than ever before – and accounts for Netflix and other video streaming services are now so common, that these platforms have saturated popular culture and have become the basis for all sorts of different memes and pop references.
Of course, the kind of entertainment media you routinely consume can have a significant effect on how you see, think about, and experience the world. So, it’s probably worth giving some thought to whether the particular media forms you are exposing yourself to are lifting you up and carrying you in the direction you want to go in, or whether they are doing the opposite.
If you’d like to develop a more upbeat, enthusiastic, and adventurous outlook on life, for example, it might not be the best idea to constantly saturate yourself with forms of entertainment media that deal with heartbreak, despair, misery, and broken dreams. A bit of drama is fine every once in a while, but it might not be the main fuel you want to feed to your imagination and subconscious mind.
Not only can good video games, TV shows, and films, help to viscerally relax and entertain you, and take your mind off whatever stresses and preoccupations you might be dealing with on a daily basis, they can also be proactively used as ways to drive up your energy and excitement levels in one domain or another.
So, indulge in forms of entertainment media that help to make you feel more positive, driven, and excited about everyday life and the promises it holds. This might seem like a bit of a trivial or an arbitrary exercise, but it’s actually undeniable that the sorts of themes you condition yourself to notice and think about will influence the way you perceive the world around you. This, in turn, will influence your actions.
In order to get a better insight into the power of directed attention – look up the famous “invisible gorilla” psychological study, where several individuals were so preoccupied with passing a ball back and forth, that they didn’t notice when a man in a gorilla suit walked directly into the middle of their game.
Join groups and platforms that set you regular challenges to explore
It’s often really easy to become passive and stagnant when you are sitting at home alone by yourself, without any real external pressure to get you out and about, or to keep you engaged with your hobbies, projects, or goals.
As human beings, our individual stores of “willpower” are finite – and if you find yourself relying on willpower alone, all day, every day, in order to make sure that you do the things you think you should be doing, it’s very likely that you will burn out sooner rather than later, and stray off track. At least, that’s what the psychologist Kelly McGonigal has to say about it.
So, what can you do in order to ensure that you remain outgoing, and live an exciting and active life, even if you don’t always feel in the mood?
Well, one great thing to do is to join specific groups and platforms that are dedicated to some outgoing purpose or another that you find interesting and exciting, and which will serve to keep you accountable, while also setting you regular challenges to explore.
These days, various groups like this exist – some, such as Brett McKay’s “Strenuous Life” acting more or less as adult versions of the Scouts, and others having a more specific focus – such as fitness or writing.
Whatever the case, a good and focused support network can help to push you out of your comfort zone and keep you moving forward in ways that you will likely benefit from significantly.
Get in the habit of taking action instead of overthinking
It is, of course, a good idea to think things through at least to a decent extent before diving head-first into different commitments or projects. Specifically, you’ll want to make sure that what you’re about to get involved in is consistent with your values, and that you understand the key risks you are likely to face.
Beyond that, though, having a general-purpose “bias for action”, instead of allowing yourself to get caught up in an endless cycle of overthinking, can be a truly amazing way of making your life more adventurous, exciting, and dynamic. What’s more, the more of these sorts of experiences you accumulate “on the ground,” the more your imagination will be populated by your experiences and will be able to take off in exciting and interesting new directions that you might never have considered before.
The issue of “analysis paralysis” is very real, and there’s plenty of evidence that more people end up experiencing reduced quality of life these days due to this particular issue, than ever before in history.
The book, “The Paradox of Choice,” by Barry Schwartz, for example, looks at some startling evidence that shows that the more options people have available – both in their consumer habits, and also in other areas of their lives – the less likely they are to actually take any action whatsoever, and the more likely they are to become completely passive and static.
Clearly, we are all quite “spoiled for choice” in today’s world.
So, next time you want to write a novel, or get in your car and go for a long drive to an interesting location hours away from your home, or any number of other things, take a brief pause to weigh up the idea, and then just get started.
Very often you will find that the experience itself is much richer than you had envisioned beforehand – and often the doubts and concerns that might have weighed on your mind will prove to have been illusions, which you never would have dispelled if you had just sat around forever thinking about things in the abstract.
When all is said and done, life is an adventure and something to actively participate in and “do.” If, on the other hand, you allow yourself to constantly freeze up and get caught up in trying to identify the best possible path forward, you will likely miss out on many of the great adventures you could have experienced.
