Page 62 - 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself

brain comes alive during dreaming at night while the left brain sleeps. But it is

possible (as artists, poets, and saints can attest) to have the same two-sided
interplay that we had as children, while we are awake. We simply have to fire it
up by using the left brain to call on the right. This is what happens when we
make love, play games, write poetry, hold a baby, or face a threatening crisis:
The left brain commands the right brain to come alive and get involved. That is
when you get whole-brain thinking, or what psychologist Abraham Maslow
called peak experiences.

The three best ways to activate whole-brain thinking are through 1) goal-
visualization, 2) joyful work, and 3) revitalizing play. Rather than wait for
external crises to appear, create internal challenge games of your own—goals
and purposes—that lead you in growth toward the motivated person you want to
become.

The real excitement in studies of the power of the right brain lies in their
suggestion of a neurological basis for personal transformation. It’s not just
motivational puff or secular evangelism to say that we possess unlimited creative
energy, and we can use it to create the lives we want. As Colin Wilson writes in
The Essential Colin Wilson:

In fact, we can learn to live on a far, far higher level of power. And
that is what the left brain was intended for. Its farsightedness gives it
the ability to summon power. Yet it hardly makes use of this ability. It
could be compared to a man who possesses a magic machine that will
create gold coins so that he could, if he wanted, pay off the national
debt and abolish poverty. But he is so lazy and stupid that he never

bothers to make more than a couple of coins every day—just enough to
see him through until the evening…or perhaps he is not lazy: only
afraid of emptying the machine. If so, the fear is unnecessary. It is
magical, and cannot be emptied.

Most people regard their right brain with a sense of wonder. They think
inspiring thoughts “came to them” out of the blue. “Last night I had the strangest
dream!” they will say, not knowing how much control they really have over that
magical machine.

43. Get your stars out