Serendipity and luck are by their very nature unpredictable, and therefore not part of any good plan. When something unexpected happens, things are no longer “going according to plan”, and there is a tendency to view the unexpected event either as a distraction, or as a frustrating obstacle to success.
The difference between a life full of frustrating obstacles, and a life full of serendipity, is largely a matter of interpretation.
If creative insights are the products of daydreaming, could it be that they are the purpose of daydreaming? In that case, the seemingly aimless meanderings of our minds would, in fact, be goal-directed. Schooler agrees, but with a caveat: “It’s important to distinguish between the goals of the moment and more long-term goals,” he explains. “Daydreaming is typically not in the service of the goals of the moment; in fact it works against the goals of the moment. But at the same time, it likely is driven by more distant goals.”
I think most people have one top idea in their mind at any given time. That’s the idea their thoughts will drift toward when they’re allowed to drift freely. And this idea will thus tend to get all the benefit of that type of thinking, while others are starved of it.
You can’t directly control where your thoughts drift. If you’re controlling them, they’re not drifting. But you can control them indirectly, by controlling what situations you let yourself get into. That has been the lesson for me: be careful what you let become critical to you.
Psychologist Ibrahim Senay of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign figured out an intriguing way to explore intention, motivation and goal–directed actions. Senay did this by exploring self–talk — that voice in your head that articulates what you are thinking, spelling out your options and intentions. Senay thought that self–talk might be a tool for exerting the will — or being willing.
It is the difference between “Will I do this?” and “I will do this.” [Q]uestions by their nature speak to possibility and freedom of choice. Meditating on them might enhance feelings of autonomy and intrinsic motivation, creating a mind–set that promotes success.
People with wondering minds completed significantly more anagrams than did those with willful minds. In other words, the people who kept their minds open were more goal–directed and more motivated than those who declared their objective to themselves.
Setting your mind on a goal may be counterproductive.
My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive. When I am running but not listening to my iPod. When I am sitting, doing nothing, waiting for someone. When I am lying in bed as my mind wanders before falling to sleep. These “wasted” moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital.
They are the moments in which we, often unconsciously, organize our minds, make sense of our lives, and connect the dots. They're the moments in which we talk to ourselves. And listen.
Many scientists argue that daydreaming is a crucial tool for creativity, a thought process that allows the brain to make new associations and connections.
“If your mind didn’t wander, then you’d be largely shackled to whatever you are doing right now,” says Jonathan Schooler, a psychologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “But instead you can engage in mental time travel and other kinds of simulation. During a daydream, your thoughts are really unbounded.”
In a forthcoming paper, Schooler's lab has shown that people who engage in more daydreaming score higher on experimental measures of creativity, which require people to make a set of unusual connections.
[W]hen we are stuck on a particularly difficult problem, a good daydream isn’t just an escape - it may be the most productive thing we can do.
