Humans are amazing but also so limited sometimes. We can create absolutely life- and world-changing things, but we also seem to accept bizarre limits. You know that moment when you realized that breakfast food is a fake category? That. The whole world opens up when you can have cereal at any time of day.

We have to accept things and make assumptions to get through the day. If we started from scratch, we would never make it out of house. Routine and stability allow us to save time and decision making power. I know that brushing my teeth is important. If I had to relearn that every morning, my teeth would be in poor shape and my morning routine would take forever. We understand things better when we can work within boundaries and dependable systems, focusing on what is important in that moment. This ability to narrow our mental vision is essential, but we shouldn’t lose the ability to think beyond the present reality.

The great inventors, entrepreneurs, and artists of the world all had imagination and a willingness to move beyond assumed limitations. That ability to break through the system is incredibly valuable and is not always easy. It is, however, a skill that you can build. Strengthening your imagination will give you the ability to remove constraints. And to succeed in sustainability, we need a lot of imagination.

My go-to example of the lack of imagination is car dependency. I live in a walkable-ish community. I say walkable because it has lots of sidewalks, attractions within pedestrian distances, and a neighborhood accustomed to people outside of cars. I say -ish because I perhaps stretch how pedestrian-friendly it is by brute force. I might be biking to more places than my friends would choose to or the infrastructure encourages. I am certainly the outlier in my neighborhood and in my society generally. I am a big proponent for reduced car and car free living, but I still have to use a car to do many important things, such as go to the doctor or to work events, because my built environment assumes and prioritizes car ownership.

This is common in the United States but not necessarily true in other parts of the world. There are many examples of both rural and urban communities where you can live without a car for the vast majority of your trips or even be completely car free. Yet when I speak to Americans (I live in the US, so that is pretty much everyone unless I am doing international calls for work), there is this inability to imagine life without a car. If I say that we should not use cars to get places, my conversational partner does not think of public transit, high density building, and pedestrian-friendly spaces, but rather just imagines never being able to leave the house. The idea of being without a car is so fundamentally foreign that it is like their brain cannot move past the change. Even if I gave examples of places outside of America where cars are not required, my conversational partner will first explain why that wouldn’t work where we live. This limit to imagination is both deeply frustrating to me personally and limiting to societal development in the United States. You cannot build a better world if you can’t even contemplate its existence. You also cannot innovate or build a unique offering for your business if you just accept things the way they are.

So how can we extend our imagination in this way? There are many options. Start by seeking out alternative viewpoints and ways of living, such as seeing what it is like to live in a place that doesn’t rely on cars. What would change? What would be worse and what would be better? Something being different is neutral. It is how it impacts you that will indicate its value. Be willing to make small changes and try new things. Seek out challenges to what your current life-view.

Don’t be afraid of failure. This is an essential part of entrepreneurship, but can be a valuable thing or all people. Just because something doesn’t work the first time doesn’t mean you need to throw out the whole idea. Pivot, adjust, respond. I would also argue that our current reality is imperfect, so you shouldn’t expect your imaginary one to be flawless. There is rarely a ‘final’ answer in sustainability. It is a practice, not an endpoint. Investigate the issues you see, as that may be the place where true innovation happens.

This can all be done by yourself, but your social environment is going to have a major influence on your imagination. This is partly why companies spend so much time talking about culture and why large, mature businesses can be slow on the uptake when it comes to industry disruption. If the people around you don’t have imagination, you are not going to be challenged in your thinking or encouraged to go beyond the limits. Cultivate in your business an openness to new ideas, and cultivate in yourself an engagement with productive conflict.

I love to cook. I live on the coast. I don’t eat seafood. There are a number of reasons for this, but the end result is that there is an entire culinary world that I simply don’t engage with. I have enough recipes on my “to-make” list that this doesn’t really bother me, but I do know that I am missing out in some way. This is true in an expanded way with imagination. We lock ourselves out of possibility if we cannot imagine it exists. Don’t miss out on opportunities in business just because you aren’t used to seeing beyond what is already proven and happening. Pair experience and knowledge with openness and imagination to create a truly innovative, competitive business.

We are not going to bother working towards a better future if change is impossible. Imagination and hope go hand in hand. The world is complicated, but that doesn’t mean it is immovable. We have experience a huge amount of transformation as a society in the past 10 years alone, and plenty of supposedly impossible things are now routine. If I was unable to imagine anything better, I would give up the consulting work and go live in the woods. Some days, I am tempted to do just that. But others, I can see the path forward.