Where Does Your Mind Go When It Wanders?
Paul White's nationally distributed syndicated column, “Where Does Your Mind Go When It Wanders?” is published in 22 publications across seven states. This includes the following newspapers and digital publications: Midland Daily News (MI), SFGate (CA), Seattle PI (WA), Connecticut Post (CT), Laredo Morning Times (TX), Huron Daily Tribune (MI), The Telegraph (IL), and more. In this week's article, Paul explains why allowing our mind to wander—focusing on positive outcomes—can provide consistent joy in our life.
What’s pointing your mind in the specific direction it takes when it wanders? Could it be your heart? And what are you inclined to do about it? Do you tend to push it to the sideline and go back to where your mind was originally taking you before it began to wander? After all, you’re way too busy to allow time for your mind to wonder aimlessly unless the wandering can produce immediate results. But wait. What if there were ways we could encourage our mind to wander and then generate value from the process? Please buckle up as we take off on a worthy adventure together.
Truth is, we were all pretty good at letting our minds naturally wander when we were kids. We didn’t have the same kind of input that adults were receiving at the time, and our curiosity gene was in first gear with the pedal floored. So much to explore, so much to understand, and the dreams we could consider were awesome and endless. As busy as we are as adults these days, we’ve all but lost our intent, desire, and ability to let our mind wander. What a farce! And exactly when did we lose the ability to let our mind wander the way it used to as a child? Especially considering the incredible results it had produced that provided each of us with the valuable life tools HOPE, MOTIVATION, and INSPIRATION…all which led us towards a better life. Did the responsibility of adulting remove all that from each of us? Nope, not ALL of us.
Consider that some of the greatest inventions, medical discoveries, societal solutions, and personal successes all began with some person’s mind wandering and the follow-up that occurred because of it. People who wouldn’t accept the status quo believing that there just had to be a better way. Mind wandering is what led people to choose the person they wanted to be married to. Mind wandering allowed the vision to become clearer as the dream of what could be played out like a fairy tale and provided hope, motivation, and inspiration for us to pursue the individual we were falling in love with. That’s powerful. A wandering mind can also help us clarify where we want our life to be both now and at variable points in the future. That clarity can help us set goals, and the steps necessary for achieving those goals, that fulfills the dreams we conjure up when our mind is in full wander mode. But mind wandering needs to be managed by a set of rules that serves us best. What do I mean by that? Keep reading.
Imagine two people both allowing their mind to wander, and they both end up dreaming of a trip to Fiji out in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean. The first person’s mind wanders to how long the flight would be and how many layovers would be involved. They’d need to update their expired passport, book hotel reservations, figure out transportation while there, calculate the total workdays needed for the trip, what language they speak there, how many pieces of luggage it’ll require, and check to see what the weather is like this time of year. The second person’s mind wanders to a vision of enjoying a glass of wine on the balcony of their ocean view room veranda with palm trees swaying in the gentle breeze.
Question: which person’s management of their mind wandering will most likely lead to the hope, motivation, and inspiration of actually going on a trip to Fiji? Seems like mind wandering can be filed under both a self-help and a self-abuse genre. Good news is YOU are the one that gets to control it. The first person’s use of mind wandering will most likely abandon the idea of ever going to Fiji. The second person will recognize that there are tasks associated with getting there but never abandons the vision of joy created by their wandering mind as they navigate making it happen.
That’s why allowing our mind to wander focused on positive outcomes can provide consistent joy in our life. And, it doesn’t have to be a trip to Fiji. It may just be a trip to the grocery store. In other words, let your mind wander to a place that results in a trip to the grocery store being fun and rewarding rather than a mundane task. Imagine running into people you know and having an uplifting conversation or discovering that ice cream has 10 times the health benefits of vegetables. Okay, the second one will never happen but allowing my mind to wander there made me smile.
So why not give it a shot. Yes. Right now. Go ahead and let your mind wander for the next 10 minutes and see if your wandering takes you to a place that provides hope, motivation, and inspiration that causes you to take action in pursuit of the positive outcomes you created with allowing your mind to wander. Maybe we’ll run into each other at the grocery store and have an uplifting conversation. I can see it clearly in my mind. Hope you can too! Hey…I Believe In YOU! GiddyUp!
Paul White is a guest columnist and author. Purchase his life-changing book “The Answer Discovery – How to Change the World by Helping Others…and Ourselves” at http://bit.ly/PaulWhiteAmazon. If you’re interested in getting in touch with Paul, please submit an inquiry via our Contact Page.