How Imagination Can Change Your Mindset as a Teenager by LK Tommi

“Curiosity, creativity and imagination is the key to unlocking your life’s dreams and aspirations.”

This article has been written with teenagers in mind. Think about the teenage years; they can be full of ups and downs.

On the one hand, they have newfound freedoms, independence, and experiences opened up to them. But, on the other, they can also have more pressure, responsibility, and stress muddling their thoughts, blocking their creative thinking, and leaving little room for their self-care.

Think back to a time when you had a child’s imagination.

You could build worlds with your mind, and you were free to dive into your curiosities to imagine endless possibilities. You could get lost in there for hours, asking questions, creating answers, and adding to the fabric of your identity and how you fit into the world around you.

Then you get a little older as a teenager, and more things pile up on your plate. The time and space you once had to explore your mind are now underneath a mountain of schoolwork, social activities, household chores, social media, and everything else in your day-to-day life.

So how do teenagers take control of their thoughts and steer them back towards a positive mindset while boosting their creativity and imagination?

Awareness of you

We all have thousands of thoughts in a day. Yet, how many of us take the time to acknowledge and explore our curiosities? When you make space to explore your thoughts and what you are curious about, you’re adding to your imagination’s canvas and painting as you go through different life experiences. In this process, you’re connecting your imagination and creativity as your mind goes on a journey of design and discovery instead of letting your curiosity and imagination pass you by due to distractions.

Not every thought is positive, and it’s essential to be equally aware of positive and negative thoughts so you can learn strategies to build resilient thoughts.

Play the game “Catch and Change”

Think of your mind as a stream with a fork in it that allows your thoughts to move in one of two directions; thoughts you accept and interact with and thoughts you don’t need or want to pay any attention to as you let them pass you by and go down the different pathways of the brain, just like a fork in the road.

Sometimes, your mind can be so overwhelmed with the stream of thoughts that you don’t filter the negative thoughts out. So instead, they continue to build speed, and the more you interact with them, the more you start accepting them as truth instead of what they are – just an unhelpful negative thought.

A little trick I use for changing negative thoughts to positive thoughts is something I like to call the ‘Catch and Change’. By connecting with your thoughts (negative and positive), you take control by catching a negative thought and saying to yourself, “Stop. I don’t want this thought. I don’t need this thought – it doesn’t serve me.” Then, using the power of the imagination, you can change and create a different pathway in the brain towards more positive thinking to replace negative thoughts.

Building better thoughts with curiosity, creativity, and imagination

Think of your imagination as a doorway to a life filled with curiosity, creativity, and opportunity. Your imaginative mind is capable of creative solutions, mental resilience, personal growth, and endless pathways.

When you stack things in front of that doorway, they can’t be opened.

But, when you clear some space through strategies such as meditation and being mindful of your thoughts – even just for a few minutes a day – you can begin to clear some of the clutter. You can breathe, reconnect with your inner self, and go on an adventure with your imagination as you actively feed your creativity, rekindle your curiosity, and free your mind.

My name is LK Tommi – I work in the teaching and psychology field. I am the author of a resilience-based book and journal series supporting children and teenagers to understand their emotions, thinking, energy, and behaviour and how it connects with their everyday life experiences.

In the articles I have written from January, I have been giving you a snapshot of my book, which will be released later this year, The Ultimate Teenage Experience: The Power of Perspective.