Think Happy!

There’s a question that I’m sure many of us have pondered a number of times. Sometimes it comes out of a sense of frustration. Sometimes it’s a wonderful means of brain-storming. This afternoon, it opened up a whole series of new questions for me:

If you could go back in time 10 years and give yourself 1 piece of advice, what would it be?

There’s a whole host of things I’d want to say to myself, mostly about being more flexible – and less anxious – about the future. However, as I thought about it more, I realised that this nostalgic question could be a wonderful means of self-improvement, if we change direction and ask: If you could go forward in time 10 years and give your current self some advice, what would it be?

You know how when you’re taking a warm bath, you can find yourself suddenly stumbling upon the solution to problems that have kept your brain taxed for months? Or, you struggle to remember what previous films the actor you’re watching has been in – and then you stop thinking about it and it just comes to you? The key is giving your brain a rest, relaxing and creating some ‘distance’ between yourself and the issue at hand. What happens is then similar to the dream process, with your brain refreshing itself and your mind undergoing a bit of a spring clean. Stray thoughts are reclassified, lost memories are labeled and filed away and new associations are made. (This is precisely what we see happening when people wisely take some distance from a difficult issue in order to contemplate a big decision.)

The question that I stumbled upon above works in a similar way. I found myself quickly coming-up with advice that I knew I desperately needed to hear. So, give it a go and see if it works for you: If you could go forward in time 10 years and give your current self some advice, what would it be?

And what are you going to do about it?