Beyond Logic: Using Daydreams to Guide Your Next Steps

This week we take a look at an exercise which aims to bypass the logical mind and tap into what we’re really feeling.

Often, our true feelings around our career can be clouded by a lot of “shoulds". What should we do given our education and experience? What do those around us think we should do? What’s the best next step to progress?

It can sometimes be hard to put these to one side, and focus on how we feel, and what’s actually important to us. That’s where the “Daydream Journal” exercise might be useful.

Daydreaming is something we all do a lot of: it’s estimated that we spend between 30% and almost 50% of our waking hours daydreaming [1]. If we’re unhappy in our work, or considering a career change, it’s likely that we’ll be having some work-related daydreams. Capturing and interpreting our daydreams can give interesting insights into what might be important to us in our work.

Here's what to do...

Journaling

Keep a journal where you note down any work-related daydreams which you have. This could be a special notebook, your phone, or even a voice note. The best method is the one which you’ll use! Write the daydream down as soon as you notice it, so it's not forgotten. The more daydreams, and the more detail you note down, the better your dataset to analyse will be.

Interpreting

After a week or so, or once you have a good number of daydreams noted down, it’s time to analyse them. Read back over your daydreams, trying to fully re-immerse yourself in the experience. Notice how you feel – especially from an emotional perspective.

Now, get curious about your daydreams. What might they say about your current situation? What do they say about what's important to you in your work? Are there elements of your daydream which have featured in previous roles, and which elements do you want to include in future ones? It can also be interesting to think about the reactions to our daydreams. Do they feel unrealistic? Dig in to that. Is that genuinely the case (which it may well be!)? Or is there information there about barriers which you need to overcome?

Action

The last step is to think about what you’ll take away from the exercise. How might you incorporate elements of your daydreams in your career? Are there ways that you could sample or test those out? Are there any barriers standing in the way? Are those absolute, or how might you overcome them?

The power of this exercise lies in the fact that we're capturing our dreams with our logical brains switched off, unencumbered by thoughts of whether these plans are realistic or viable. This can give us a real insight into what’s important to us, and can be a good exercise to try if you’re feeling stuck.

[1] Killingsworth, M.A., & Gilbert, D.T. (2010). A Wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science, 330(6006), 932-932.