“Get your head out of the clouds!”
They’re the words nearly all of us have heard from our school teachers at one point or another when our minds wandered to something more interesting than whatever we were supposed to be focusing on. But recent studies have shown that getting your head out of the clouds isn’t necessarily a good thing. Yes, daydreaming can have some considerable positives. For example, if you find yourself daydreaming about things such as getting a promotion, starting a new career, or trying to be healthier by perhaps going to the gym more, daydreaming about all these things can motivate us and be a benefit.
So maybe our school teachers were wrong.
Realistic daydreams, can show us what we could actually achieve if we put our mind to it and these can be really positive. To have your own, simply choose an actual goal that you’re hoping to accomplish over the next couple of months.
Then, when you’re stood in a queue, on a break at work, or stuck in traffic, perhaps envisioning yourself pursuing that goal as realistically as you can might be something to consider. But instead of skipping to the part where you have made your millions or achieved your goal, instead, vividly thinking about all the hard work and steps you’ll need to take to get there, will help you to actually achieve it and put that hard work into practice.
For example, if your goal is to get fitter and healthier, instead of just imagining what you want to look like, perhaps envisioning yourself getting up early and going for a run, maybe thinking about the food preparations you’ll have to make on a Sunday evening and all the different healthy meals you could make. As well as this, if you think there might be some obstacles to encounter on the way, don’t ignore them, instead perhaps think about how you could overcome them.
However, sometimes letting your mind wander can simply just be distracting. You can be sat in an important meeting that you really needed to concentrate on and 2 hours later you walk out and have absolutely no clue what was discussed. Or even worse, when you’re driving, and you get to your destination, and have no idea how you got there? Not knowing whether you stopped at red lights, or whether you check the zebra crossing for pedestrians. I’m sure many of us can relate to this, and this is when daydreaming can become a slight issue.
So, whether you call it zoning out, spacing out, or daydreaming, we spend up to 47 percent of our waking lives letting our minds wander. But being able to control your daydreams can be the difference between achieving your goals and wasting time. So, don’t feel so bad about all your daydreaming. Mind-wandering may be a sign of intelligence and creativity. And as long as your performance at work or wherever you are doesn’t suffer when your mind drifts, daydreaming may not be such a bad thing after all.
