Resetting the Picture

Did you know that, in at least one way, you are at your creative best when your system is out of order?

When we talk about being “Out of Order,” it means when your mental picture of how things should be is very different from how things actually are. Human beings are always striving for order, and when our mental picture of how things should be matches reality, we feel comfortable and in control. (How do you feel when you see a crooked picture on the wall? If you are like most people, it bothers you.)

But what happens when they don’t match? What happens when our mental picture of, say, the car we drive is thrown out of order by an accident? Or our picture of how we make our living is thrown out of order by a sudden layoff? Or suddenly, we need to interact with the world wearing a mask?

What happens is that we create inside ourselves a tremendous amount of drive and energy to restore order, to make our inner picture and reality match, once again. We feel highly motivated to get that car repaired, to get a new job, or find a positive reason why we want to wear that mask. We do whatever is required to set things right – including walking over and physically straightening the crooked picture on the wall.

Once order is restored, the drive and energy turn off because they are no longer needed. This is exactly how goal-setting works. When you set a goal and systematically visualize the end-result, you throw your system out of order. In a sense, you purposely make the picture crooked on the wall of your mind. That creates the drive and energy to change reality so that it matches the picture you have been visualizing.

This is the value in continuously setting goals and finding the value in what you are going after. You don’t need to arrive at your desired end-result and then go flat because your energy just up and drove away. New goals create new energy and new creativity, and each day provides a new view to what your life can be!