Your Future Self

Morning Leaders,

A clear image of a potentially positive future state is powerful. It provides direction, it provides optimism, and most importantly it helps us to keep going.

In psychology, they refer to that future state as prospection. Defined as:

Prospection is in play in leadership too. The future mental image or the vision that the leader articulates and inspires people to join in on, is critical to the success of the organisation.

But, how many of us have a clear vision of ourselves? That’s 3, 5, or 10 years down the line.

I mean a visual image of who we want to become. So many of us get trapped into the thinking that who we are today is who we will be in the future. Limiting beliefs.

As Leaders, we have to see past the present and into the future. We have to see what could be, what is possible and believe that with deliberate practice, focus, and intentional steps, we can make it happen.

When we look at ourselves today, we are not the same person we were 5 or 10 years ago. We have evolved, we have matured, we have learned new things, we have progressed, and gained new experiences. In most cases, we have upgraded ourselves and organically improved.

We should use this as reinforcement that we can be ambitious about our future self over the next 5-10 years, and what we want to achieve is possible.

A lot of the time we make our decisions based on the present and our thinking in the moment. If we really want to elevate our level of thinking and success, we should start using our imagination more and directing our thinking towards that future state.

Try this:

1. Imagine what you want your future self to look like in 3, 5 or 10 years’ time. What does that look like? How would they think? How would they behave? Who do you need to become to get there?

2. Start writing down specific goals that align with that vision. Just 2-3 max.

3. Recognise that what you invest in yourself today will compound and grow by 10-15x in 3-5 years’ time.

4. Focus only on what’s important to get you to that future state. Remove the busy work and the goals that don’t matter.

Making quality decisions in the present towards that future state will help guide your decision-making to create the future you want. Without a clear purpose your present loses meaning, it loses context. The context is your future.

Making your future bigger drives the right behaviours and excitement in the present. What you focus on is who you become. With that mental future image in mind, every day you are consciously or subconsciously taking small steps towards it. How quickly you get there will depend on how committed, how hungry, and how much you want it.

Hope this helps you think differently.

All the best

David

Resources Of The Week

• YouTube Video - TEDx Talk by Scott Hutcheson on Prospection. Scott talks about reminiscing forward. So rather than reminiscing on previous experiences and enjoying those moments again, you can actually do the same thing for how you would like something to be. Also known as Prospection.

• Tool - Winning List - take a copy of this template and start documenting all your major achievements. Each win is like a positive reinforcement credit that you are winning. Use this as a springboard and benchmark that you’re doing alright. You will have some periods in your career where you doubt yourself and feel discouraged, use this as a positive reflection tool of how far you have come to stamp out any doubt in your ability.

• YouTube Video - William McRaven - Make Your Bed Everyday. William McRaven is a retired Navy Seal and talks about why the little things in life matter. If you cannot do the little things right, how can you get the big things right?

• YouTube Video - Vision Motivation Video by Mateusz. A number of clips and powerful speeches from Eric Thomas and a number of other speakers on building a vision and imaging what is possible. Inspiring, take a look.

Quote of the Week

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