Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

undoubtedly throw more light on brain functioning. But the point here is that we
are capable of performing many different kinds of thought processes and we
barely tap our potential. As we become aware of its different capacities, we can
consciously use our minds to meet specific needs in more effective ways.
Two Ways to Tap the Right Brain
If we use the brain dominance theory as a model, it becomes evident that the
quality of our first creation is significantly impacted by our ability to use our
creative right brain. The more we are able to draw upon our right-brain capacity,
the more fully we will be able to visualize, to synthesize, to transcend time and
present circumstances, to project a holistic picture of what we want to do and to
be in life.
Expand Perspective
Sometimes we are knocked out of our left-brain environment and thought
patterns and into the right brain by an unplanned experience. The death of a
loved one, a severe illness, a financial setback, or extreme adversity can cause us
to stand back, look at our lives, and ask ourselves some hard questions: "What's
really important? Why am I doing what I'm doing?
But if you're proactive, you don't have to wait for circumstances or other
people to create perspective-expanding experiences. You can consciously create
your own.
There are a number of ways to do this. Through the powers of your
imagination, you can visualize your own funeral, as we did at the beginning of
this chapter. Write your own eulogy. Actually write it out. Be specific.
You can visualize your twenty-fifth and then your fiftieth wedding
anniversary. Have your spouse visualize this with you. Try to capture the essence
of the family relationship you want to have created through your day-by-day
investment over a period of that many years.
You can visualize your retirement from your present occupation. What
contributions, what achievements will you want to have made in your field?
What plans will you have after retirement? Will you enter a second career?
Expand your mind. Visualize in rich detail. Involve as many emotions and
feelings as possible. Involve as many of the senses as you can.
I have done similar visualization exercises with some of my university
classes. “Assume you only have this one semester to live,” I tell my students,
"and that during this semester you are to stay in school as a good student.
Visualize how you would spend your semester.
Things are suddenly placed in a different perspective. Values quickly surface
that before weren't even recognized.
I have also asked students to live with that expanded perspective for a week