Imagination for wellbeing and innovation

I found fascinating an article posted by ‘A Lust for Life’, an Irish mental health charity, that identified an overlap between wellbeing and imagination. They describe imagination as the “beating heart of invention” while reminding it’s also about building a life of meaning and purpose.

“Yet how many of us have ever been taught to use this superpower to its full potential,” they ask describing imagination as “an under-appreciated yet critical element of creativity and innovation”.

The first step to unlocking those imaginative ideas, they claim, is to suspend judgement.

“A key skill and overlap between mental health and coming up with creative ideas is developing psychological flexibility, which involves holding our thoughts and judgements lightly whilst moving towards our values,” they write.

Raleigh’s view, “The lesson of our imagination is not to censor yourself, allow the ideas to spring forward. If we judge ourselves for bad ideas then we put our filter up and we lose the good ideas as well.”

To encourage imagination in a workplace, they suggest we need to feel psychologically safe and create a culture of trust and sharing. “Celebrating the early rough ideas is required to build a bridge to the hidden treasures,” they write.

I love that idea, that we each possess ‘hidden treasures’ within our imaginations.

“It[imagination] is seeing and thinking of new possibilities which are key ingredients of innovation and agility.”

Interestingly, they remind the reinvention of so many businesses during the Covid-19 pandemic has, each time, started with imagination.

What I like most about this article is that it draws a link between imagination, wellbeing and businesses that innovate. This is the area I work in; to enhance wellbeing with imagination and to encourage us to see new possibilities by stretching our minds to find those ‘hidden treasures’ that can lead to extraordinary innovations.