Hope is a decision, a way of living your life, an expectation of and belief in the fulfillment of your dreams and desires. But hope without action will not bring you the results you’re after. So what can you do when you don’t know what to do next?

Daydream.

Yes, I’m serious.

Take a break. Close your eyes. Put yourself in the middle of your desires realized. Feel how it feels to live the life you really want to live. See yourself being, doing, having all that you desire most and ‘practice’ living it now.

Some people call this visualizing, which is a bigger, fancier word for something we’ve known how to do since childhood: daydreaming.

Somewhere along the way to adulthood we’re admonished to ’stop daydreaming’, to ‘get real’, or to ‘pull our head out of the clouds.’ But I am here to tell you there are many, many benefits to daydreaming, not the least of which is the respite we get from the troubles of the present moment.

What better way can you think of to feel right now the power and energy we know will be ‘there’ in that life we imagine? And where better to draw from the energy we need to get from here to there? Through a little strategic daydreaming, we can be our own best inspiration and bolster that decision of hope that will carry us through.