5 tips on how to keep your imagination fresh

Over the years I read a lot about this topic and as I've turned 40, I feel this is as important as ever. So here's my top5 tips and exercises to keep my imagination firing at all times:

1- Gamify everything you can in your life

Well, not everything everything, but you get the gist. Cooking, watering the plants washing your car, eating healthy. Even vacuuming. All things that we, as children, looked up to as opportunities to explore a different world, not of our own. Install an innocuous reward system for you and your close ones, and suddenly, new – and fun – connections spark in your mind.

2- Try new things

This one might seem obvious but it also takes discipline – and courage – to chase new synapses to be made in your brain. As children, nothing seems impossible, out of reach and the unknown is a call-to-arms for fun-time. As we grow up, we form our personalities, likings and preferences and tend to stay in that safe space our own little worlds, unbeknownst that the real world can feed our imagination as much as the other way around. Try Japanese poetry, Ugandan pottery or the History of Spanish Monarchs. Anything. Everything. I'm not saying that these connect in any way or form. But hey, what if they did?

guess what happens to an open mind?

3 - Fall in love with being bored

“Only boring people get bored”. Well, I beg to disagree. Nowadays we all feel the need to fill our downtime with something else. As if we’re disappointing someone else – even if ourselves – if we aren't delivering results all the time. Doing absolutely nothing allows your mind to slow down, unwind and open itself to stimuli. And guess what happens to an open mind?

4 - A balanced hobbie diet.

It’s awesome to have a passion and invest enough time to master it to perfection. However, balancing your activities in both type and location will bring your imagination a wide range of tools that will prove useful at some point in time. Sure, you might become a Jack of All Trades, Master of None, but harnessing your mind with several familiar(ish) landing ports, will allow you to explore different worlds at the switch of warp-speed engine.

5 - Practice patience.

The world of today is carved with instant-gratification. Everything is made easy and available at the touch of a button. Well, let’s look at the other side of the spectrum. Everybody will remember that trip they took to a remote place for a once-in-a-lifetime meal, having waited for it for more than a year or that experiential movie night watching “Jaws” inside a boat in a large swimming pool. The best things in life take time. And imagination is our greatest asset, first to fill in that yearn to create and secondly to tell the most epic of stories.

These are not rocket science, I'm sure. But they work for me. Dream. Dream as much as possible everyone. It's awesome!