Your Ideal Day – An Exercise to Help You Decide What You Truly Want

Lou Reed wrote a song in 1972 called “Perfect Day”; the lyrics begin as follows:

Just a perfect day
drink sangria in the park
And then later when it gets dark
we go home

Just a perfect day
feed animals in the zoo
Then later a movie too
and then home

Oh, it’s such a perfect day
I’m glad I spent it with you
Oh, such a perfect day

Do you know what your perfect or ideal day looks like? I’ve been putting the finishing touches on my second eBook, “How to Live Your Best Life –The Essential Guide for Creating and Achieving Your Life List”, which contains lots of exercises to help you determine exactly what it is that you want out of life, as well as the steps to take to create that life once you’ve defined it.

One of the exercises included in the eBook is called “The Ideal Day”, and it was inspired by several different sources, including Barbara Sher and Martha Beck.

For the “Ideal Day” exercise you’re going to close your eyes and visualize a typical day in your ideal life, five years into the future, by tuning in to all of the physical sensations that you feel as you go throughout your day. Allow yourself to see in your mind’s eye whatever comes up, even if it seems farfetched or it doesn’t make any sense to you. Use the following prompts:

• You wake up.  What do you smell?  Do you smell freshly brewed coffee?  How about bacon and eggs, or pastries?  Do you smell pine trees?  Do you smell the ocean?

• What do you hear?  Do you hear the traffic in the street below?  Do you hear a dog barking or a rooster crowing?  Do you hear birds chirping?  How about children laughing?  Is someone singing in the shower?

• Feel the bedding around you.  Is it high-thread count cotton?  Is it silk?  Are you in a sleeping bag?

• Keep your eyes closed, but open your eyes in your visualization and look around you.  What do you see?  Is there someone asleep beside you?  Who is it?  What does the room like?  Are you outside?  If you’re indoors, what’s the furniture like?  Is there a vase filled with fresh flowers by your bed?  Are there photographs displayed?  Who’s in the photographs? Is there an easel standing near the window?  Is there a desk with a lap top computer on it?

• Walk over to the window and look out.  What do you see?  Do you have a beautiful view of Central Park in New York City?  Can you see Il Duomo in Florence?  Do you see a forest?  Do you see the Swiss Alps?  Do you see a country road?  Do you see the streets of downtown Tokyo?

• What happens next?  Does your significant other enter the room carrying a tray filled with your favorite breakfast foods?  Do you head out to the kitchen?  As you walk out of your room toward the kitchen, what do you see?  Do you walk past a nursery?  Do you cross a high ceiling living room with magnificent paintings hanging on the walls?  What does the kitchen look like?  Is it sleek and modern, or rustic? Who do you come across?  Who do you share your living space with?

• Where do you have your breakfast?  Do you sit down at the kitchen table?  Do you have a breakfast nook?  Do you go out on the terrace?  How about the balcony?  Who do you have breakfast with? It can be anyone.  If the President of the United States is sitting at your breakfast table in your visualization, so be it.   Is the newspaper waiting for you on the table?

• What do you have for breakfast?  Do you have a cappuccino maker so that you can enjoy a cappuccino every morning?  Do you have fresh fruits for breakfast?  Do you eat whole wheat toast and cheese?  Do you have freshly squeezed orange juice?

• Now you’re going to shower and get ready for your first morning activity.  You walk into the bathroom.  Is there an old-fashioned bear claw tub? Do you have a waterfall shower?  Is there a monogrammed terry bath robe hanging behind the door?  What else do you see?

• Look at yourself in a full-length mirror. What do you see? Are you at your ideal weight? Do you look fit and in good health? How do you feel? Are you happy? Do you feel serene and at peace?

• Go over to where you keep your clothes.  Do you have a walk-in closet?  Do you keep your clothes in an antique armoire?  The clothes that you own can give you a lot of clues as to your idea life.  Do you have several business suits?  Are there couture evening gowns hanging in the closet?  Do you have lots of jeans and t-shirts?  Is there a ski jacket in there?

• How many pairs of shoes do you have?  What type of shoes do you own?  Do you have hiking boots?  How about stilettos?  Do you own several pairs of slippers?

• What do you do now?  Do you meditate for twenty minutes?  Do you grab your surf board and head out to the ocean to catch some waves before your day officially begins?  Do you go to the stable and go out for a horseback ride?

• When you’re getting ready to go to work, what do you put on?  Are you getting ready for an important meeting with the Board of Directors of the company you work for? Are you getting ready to read the morning news on TV?  Are you putting on gardening clothes?  You’re getting ready to do whatever it is that you do.  Don’t think about money, in your ideal life that’s taken care of.  You’re going to go do the work that you love, work that fulfills you and which you find meaningful.  It’s work that feels like play to you, and which allows you to reach the flow state often.

• Do you drive to work?  If so, what type of car do you drive?  Do you have a chauffeur who drives you?  Do you walk to work?  Do you ride your bike to work?  Do you work from home?

• If you don’t work from home, where do you go?  Do you go to a high-rise building in downtown Manhattan?  Do you go to a studio filled with art supplies?  Do you walk into a large office filled with colleagues you love working with?  Do you go to the kitchen in the restaurant you own?  Do you go to the library to write, surrounded by books?  Do you walk into a flower shop which you own with your sister?

• What sort of work do you do? Do you work with your hands? With ideas? Are you writing? Are you putting together a choreography showcase for a dance troupe? Are you creating a product? Are you drafting legislation? Are you cooking?  Are you performing surgery?

• Where do you go for lunch?  Is your work day over by noon?  Do you head home to spend the rest of the day with your kids?  Do you go to a dance class, yoga, or take piano lessons in the afternoon?  Do you go back to work?

• What do you do in the early evening?  Do you spend some time with your significant other chatting about your day?  Do you go to the park with your children?  Do you spend time reading or listening to classical music?

• Now you’re going to go out to a restaurant for dinner with your favorite people in the world.  Who’s there?  It can be anyone, including Napoleon Hill and Oprah.  Or it can just be your spouse and your children.  It can also be your parents, your siblings, or your best friends.

• How about after dinner?  What happens then?

After you’re done with your visualization exercise you might want to sit down at your computer, or take out a pen and a notebook, and write down what you just saw in your mind’s eye.

• Did something surprise you?
• Did you discover something about what you want that you weren’t aware of before completing this exercise?
• Did your rational mind interfere with a comment about how you weren’t being reasonable?
• Did your inner critic interject with some negative comment about how that life just wasn’t possible for someone like you?

Did you truly allow yourself to see what a typical day would look like in your ideal life, without judgment?  If so, you now know what you’re working towards.

Please share in the comments section what your ideal or perfect day looks like.

Coming soon:

(Still Water photo is courtesy of pamramsey).

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