Excessive Day-Dreaming Can Trigger Joylessness
By: Edie Tuck
Tags: Purpose, Best Life, Plans, Dreams, Goals Objectives

How many times have you daydreamed today? Meaning, how many times have you imagined or wished for something you don’t have or a different reality? A different job, a new house, some adventure, lots of money? You don’t have to be lost in a daze for it to be considered a daydream.

We’re all guilty of it, whether we realize it, or even want to admit it. Our thoughts wander — we hope, we wish. We imagine. And really, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. After all, don’t we spend the first decade and a half of our lives listening to our parents telling us to use our imagination, and then going on to grow up and impart this same so-called wisdom on our own children?

The thing is, as much as nobody ever wants to grow up, we’re not children anymore, and this ain’t Neverland.

The thing is, there really isn’t anything wrong with dreaming; we should all have dreams, goals, aspirations — it’s not that we dream that’s the problem, it’s how we dream.

I know I’m not the only compulsive day-dreamer — come on now, you know who you are. Yeah, you! With your head perpetually in the clouds. ‘Watching’ TV but not seeing it, because you’re once again lost in the movie playing in your head. And how many times have you driven home from work on auto-pilot, not remembering the drive at all? It’s kind of scary, but I can’t even count the times I’ve been guilty of it. Forever lost in my own world, immersed in thoughts and fantasies and what-ifs.

The Counter-productiveness of Excessive (Day) Dreaming

The problem with all of this is that while we’re staring blindly into thin air, imagining all of these various scenarios of what our lives could or should be like, if only we could “x”, or had “y”, we’re wasting precious time and taking away from real productive action/behavior. We could be working towards actually building this dream life of ours.

We’re all perfectly capable of finding solutions to our problems and creating real plans that will get us closer to the lifestyle we want — without the imaginary lottery winnings or sudden acquisition of nose-twitching magical powers. (Don’t lie, you’ve thought about it!)

“All successful people are big dreamers. They imagine what their future could be, ideal in every respect, and then they work every day toward their distant vision, that goal or purpose.”― Brian Tracy

Shifting the Focus

So how do we change this dissipating behavior? It’s not easy. It has to be a conscious effort, and it isn’t going to happen overnight. Like anything else in life, it’s something we have to be consistent with until it becomes the new normal.

Life-long habits are extremely difficult to break. We have to accept the fact that it might never go away completely, but it can drastically improve over time with practice, patience, and a little bit of grace.

Once we realize there’s a pattern in our actions, it then becomes increasingly easier to notice when we’re doing it, and easier to shift the behavior in the moment.

Scenario:

You’re washing dishes for what feels like the hundredth time this week, and it’s only Tuesday. Kids are arguing, as usual. Hubby has the news channel on way too loud. The sounds start to meld into one loud incoherent hum in your head and you need to escape this less-than-ideal reality.

You let your thoughts drift — you’re no longer seeing the sink full of suds and floating noodles. Instead, you’re sitting on your imaginary balcony, in your imaginary dream house by the ocean, writing your imaginary novel in the imaginary peace and quiet and the sound of crashing waves. You got all of this by winning the imaginary lottery, of course, and were able to get your hubby an imaginary sound-proof man cave, and your teenage hellions just somehow seem to get along all the time now in this imaginary perfect new life.

And then your son drops a bowl in the now tepid water, splashing greasy bubbles into your glasses, and you hear the anchorman monotonously drone on about the twentieth homicide in your city this month. And you sigh.

You should really get to bed, so you can be up at the crack of stupid to drive for an hour and a half to a job you hate, where you haven’t received a raise in the last three years.

STOP!

Do you see the problem here?

No, it’s not the husband, or the kids, or the job, or the never-ending dirty dishes.

The problem is our overactive imagination. Our brains are designed to protect us from things that can harm us — and the level of stress we experience in the scenario above raises all the red flags. Enter, our trusted friend Imagination. It whisks us away to a place where we feel happy, everything is perfect and there’s no stress. But then, when we’re abruptly brought back to reality — as we’re bound to be — we experience the dreaded endorphin crash. In other words, our bubble bursts. It doesn’t feel good. It’s deflating (no pun intended).

It doesn’t have to be this way.

“A dream written down with a date becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams come true.” — Greg Reid

Get a notebook and a pencil. Write it all down — your goals, your dreams. All those things you just imagined, minus the lottery bit.

House on the ocean

Write for a living; publish your first novel

Get hubby some earphones

Buy a dishwasher

The list can be as short or as long as you want, as simple or complicated as you want — it’s your dreams!

Next, write down what you think it will realistically take for you to achieve each of those things, and then put a workable plan together so you can start making them happen.

You can put it all in a dollar store notebook, a spreadsheet, a day planner. Ugh. Lists and planners. I know. But if you don’t get organized with your dreams, you’ll never make them happen. This way, you can refer back to it, make adjustments, changes, updates — you can check them off once you achieve each one. (Personally, I’d start with the headphones!)

Then whenever you find your mind starts wandering towards all that make-believe stuff again, consciously shift your thinking back to your plan. Revisit it often, and every day, take actionable steps towards these goals and dreams. They can be little steps like putting an extra $20 in your savings account, or they can be massive life-changing steps like putting an offer on that dream house.

Start with the easier ones, and systematically work your way up.

After a while, you might find that you’re actually getting pretty good at this dreaming thing. This thing where you leave behind the childhood fairy tales. Where you stop wasting your thoughts and precious time on the hypothetical and fantastical. This thing where you learn to gain control over your thoughts, and how to turn them into actions.

This thing where you stop wallowing in self-pity and allowing yourself to be a victim of your circumstances, and fully decided that you’re worthy and capable of getting the life you dream of, and then do whatever it takes to get there.

This thing where you grow and learn, and ultimately, this thing where you own your journey.