Create the World You Want with Liminal Thinking.

 “Solutions to your problems will not come from examining your past or setting goals about the future. They will come from paying close attention to what you are doing, and what is possible, in the here and now.” Dave Gray

Liminal is a word that means threshold, or boundary. Imagine standing on the threshold of a door. The word liminal refers to that space, and that feeling, of being in-between. In this state, you can find and open new doors that allow you to see new things. Passing through these unexplored doors is both disorienting and exhilarating.

Liminal thinking is a way to keep your autopilot in check, so you remain in touch with reality as it changes and shifts. It’s a way to train your brain to flex into new ways of seeing, listening, and doing.

The first and most important step is to turn off your autopilot. Disrupt your routines by bringing your mind into the here and now.

Think about this moment, right now. You decided to download this. You’re reading these words. There’s a reason for that. You might sense that something in your life needs to change. Maybe you know what it is, maybe you don’t. It might be your company, your job, or something in your home life, but there’s something inside of you that’s telling you, something needs to change.

You can’t change the past. We all know that. And that the future doesn’t exist yet. There’s only one place where you can actually create change: right here, right now. But most of the time you are not in the here and now. Your body is here, but you’re on autopilot. Your mind is somewhere else, thinking about your to-do list, or that argument you had yesterday, or what TV show you’re going to watch later.

Autopilot is not all bad. It helps you accomplish routine tasks. If you drive the same route to work every day, you can think about other things while you’re driving. In these situations, autopilot comes in handy. But if you’re looking to create change, autopilot prevents you from getting there.

Solutions to your problems will not come from examining your past or setting goals about the future. They will come from paying close attention to what you are doing, and what is possible, in the here and now.

Think about your route to work. If you’re like me, you take that trip on autopilot. You take the same route every day, so you see the same things, and over time it gets to the point where you don’t even notice them. But if there is construction or something and that road is blocked, you are forced to find a new way, and you are inevitably going to pay attention in new ways and notice new things.

You can do this intentionally in other parts of your life as well.

Liminal Thinking. (Creating the change you want by changing the way you think)

Dave Gray is the founder of XPLANE, the visual thinking company, a consultancy focused on increasing clarity, understanding and alignment in organizations.