"The way we imagine our lives is the way we will go on living our lives." ~ James Hillman
- With imagination, the sky's the limit
In my experience as a Jungian career counselor, the clients who engage their creative imaginations more effectively during the time I work with them are more successful in the career counseling process than those who prefer to rely on career assessment results or reports on "hot industry sectors."
In a Jungian career counseling approach, my clients and I are attempting to connect to an experience of calling or vocation. In other words, we are seeking a work that expresses the individual's sense of purpose in life. Those clients who allow themselves to dream big and to think in terms of a "life purpose" are the ones who consistently report having more deeply satisfying outcomes.
Moreover, the presence of a vital and active imagination in the exploratory phase of career counseling is a positive indicator of greater motivation and success during later career transition and job search experiences.
I am absolutely convinced that the number one factor in successful career counseling outcomes is an engaged imagination.
Why Imagination?
Just this past week, the April 2014 issue of Psychology Today arrived in my mailbox with a cover story about the power of daydreams. I was pleased, but not too surprised to see this confirmation of what I have experienced so often with my clients. For almost a century now, Jungian psychology has understood that imagination is essential to the way we experience every aspect of our lives including, of course, our work. Our lives are profoundly affected by the way we imagine them.
This issue will be on the newsstands soon, but let me give you a quick preview of the cover article by psychologist, Scott Barry Kaufman.
Kaufman looks at the work of several researchers, including a study out of the University of California, Santa Barbara, which showed that most people, when they daydream, "have a 'prospective bias' -- when given time for self-reflection, their daydreams are oriented toward the future and are related to the pursuit of long-term goals."
In a sense, we never stop dreaming of what we want to do when we grow up. But these daydreams are not just wishful thinking. They are directed and purposeful:
"The researchers believe that the prospective bias serves the function of 'autobiographical planning' -- the setting and anticipation of personally relevant future goals." (Emphasis mine)
Imagination and Success
"In one of the longest and most comprehensive studies of creative achievement ever conducted, psychologist E. Paul Torrance followed a group of elementary school children for more than 30 years. He collected a wide variety of indicators of creative and scholastic promise. Strikingly, he found that the best predictor of lifelong personal and publicly recognized creative achievement--even better than academic indicators such as school grades and IQ scores--was the extent to which children had a clear future-focused image of themselves." (Emphasis mine)
In other words, we become what we can imagine. Or, as the Jungian analyst, James Hillman once said, "The way we imagine our lives is the way we will go on living our lives."
As Kaufman points out, this runs counter to our culture's "action and appearance-oriented values." It is not enough to acquire skills and training, as important as these things might be. We also need the ability, for example, "to become deeply inspired by another person." And this requires imagination, "the high-wire act of projecting ourselves into the inner emotional life of that person."
Finally, Kaufman goes on to point out that "many highly creative writers, artists, and scientists were major daydreamers as children. The long list of highly accomplished daydreamers includes, Einstein, Newton, the Brontë family, W.H. Auden, and C.S. Lewis."
Imagination in Career Counseling
For many of us, the opportunities to allow our imaginations to wander freely and construct a bright future have been few and far between. Our private imaginations have been overlaid with those of our families and the culture at large. On top of that we are often so focused on doing, that we are out of touch with our own being. For the individual coming into career counseling, this can have important effects.
A person making a career change at 50 enters into the process with different needs and expectations than someone making a career change at 30. But for both people, the kind of imagination they bring to the process will determine whether their career transition is an exciting time of growth and possibility or a frightening time filled with specters of narrowing opportunity.
Everything depends on the story being experienced in the mind of the individual.
Until my clients are able to make contact with “a clear future-focused image of themselves,” any career possibility or suggestion is greeted with a lukewarm “maybe.” But when they can become “deeply inspired” and discover the inner emotional life of their own future self--when their imaginations are engaged--then their whole being changes. A light enters their eyes that wasn’t there before and with a mix of wonder and excitement they say, “I can do that!”
Then I know it will be a success.