Create Your Own Future
You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.
JAMES ALLEN
In more than thirty-three hundred studies of leaders conducted over the years, there is a special quality that stands out, one quality that all great leaders have in common. It is the quality of vision. Leaders have vision. Nonleaders do not.
Earlier I said that perhaps the most important discovery in all of human history is that you become what you think about most of the time. What is it then that leaders think about most of the time? The answer is that leaders think about the future and where they are going and what they can do to get there.
Nonleaders, on the other hand, think about the present and the pleasures and problems of the moment. They think and worry about the past and what has happened that cannot be changed.
Think About the Future
We call this leadership quality “future orientation.” Leaders think about the future and what they want to accomplish and where they want to arrive sometime down the road. Leaders think about what they want and what can be done to achieve it. The good news is that when you begin to think about your future as well, you begin to think like a leader, and you will soon get the same results that leaders get.
Dr. Edward Banfield of Harvard University concluded, after more than fifty years of research, that “long-time perspective” was the most important determinant of financial and personal success in life. Banfield defined long-time perspective as the “ability to think several years into the future while making decisions in the present.”
This is one of the most important discoveries ever made. Just think! The further you think into the future, the better decisions you will make in the present to assure that that future becomes a reality.
Create a Five-Year Fantasy
In personal strategic planning, you should begin with a long-term view of your life. You should begin by practicing idealization in everything you do. In the process of idealization, you create a five-year fantasy for yourself and begin thinking about what your life would look like in five years if it were perfect in every respect.
Imagine No Limitations
By combining idealization and future orientation, you cancel or neutralize the process of self-limitation. You imagine for the moment that you have no limitations at all. You imagine that you have all the time, talents, and abilities you could ever require to achieve any goal you could set for yourself. No matter where you are in life, you imagine that you have all the friends, contacts, and relationships you need to open every door and achieve anything you could really want. You imagine that you have no limitations whatsoever on what you could be, have, or do in the pursuit of the goals that are really important to you.
Practice Blue-Sky Thinking
In Charles Garfield's studies of “peak performers,” he made an interesting discovery. He analyzed men and women who had achieved only average results at work for many years but who suddenly exploded into great success and accomplishment. He found that at the “take-off point,” every one of them began engaging in what he called “blue-sky thinking.”
In blue-sky thinking, you imagine that all things are possible for you, just like looking up into a clear blue sky with no limits. You project forward several years and imagine that your life is perfect in every respect. You then look back to where you are today and ask yourself this question: What would have to have happened for me to have created my perfect future?
You then come back to where you are in the present in your own mind, and you ask, “What would have to happen from this point forward for me to achieve all my goals sometime in the future?”
Refuse to Compromise Your Dreams
When you practice idealization and future orientation, you make no compromises with your dreams and visions for yourself and your future. You don't settle for smaller goals or half successes. Instead, you dream big dreams and project forward mentally as though you are one of the most powerful people in the universe. You create your perfect future. You decide what you really want before you come back to the present moment and deal with what is possible for you within your current situation.
Start with your business and career. Imagine that your work life was perfect five years from now. Answer these questions:
1. What would my work situation look like?
2. What would I be doing?
3. Where would I be doing it?
4. Whom would I be working with? What level of responsibility would I have?
5. What kinds of skills and abilities would I have?
6. What kind of goals would I be accomplishing?
7. What position or status would I have in my field?
Practice No-Limit Thinking
When you answer these questions, imagine that you have no limits. Imagine that everything is possible for you. Peter Drucker once said, “We greatly overestimate what we can accomplish in one year. But we greatly underestimate what we can accomplish in five years.” Don't let this happen to you. Don't underestimate your potential.
Now, idealize your perfect financial life five years from today. If your financial life were perfect, what would be your answers to the following questions?
1. How much would I be earning?
2. What sort of lifestyle would I have?
3. What kind of home would I live in?
4. What kind of car would I drive?
5. What kind of material luxuries would I be providing for myself and my family?
6. How much would I have in the bank?
7. How much would I be saving and investing each month and each year?
8. How much would I want to be worth when I retired?
Imagine that you have a magic slate. You can write down anything you want. You can erase anything that may have happened in the past and create whatever picture you desire for your future. You can clean the slate at any time and start over. You have no limits.
Imagine Your Perfect Family Life
Imagine your perfect family life and relationships five years in the future and answer these questions:
1. What would your family life look like?
2. Whom would you be with? Whom would you no longer be with?
3. Where and how would you be living?
4. What kind of home would you have?
5. What kind of relationships would you have with the most important people in your life five years from now if everything were perfect in every respect?
When you fantasize and imagine your perfect future, the only question you ask is, “How?” This is the most powerful question of all. Asking the “how” question stimulates your creativity and triggers ideas to help you accomplish your goals. Unsuccessful people always wonder whether or not a particular goal is possible. High achievers, on the other hand, ask only the question, “How?” They then work to find ways to turn their visions and goals into realities.
Imagine Your Ideal Health and Fitness
Review your levels of health and fitness in every area. If you were a perfect physical specimen five years from now, what would be your answers to the following questions?
1. How would you look and feel?
2. What would be your ideal weight?
3. How much would you exercise each week?
4. What would be your overall level of health?
5. What changes would you have to start making today in your diet, exercise routines, and health habits to enjoy superb physical health sometime in the future?
Imagine Your Social and Community Involvement
Now imagine that five years from now you are an important and influential person, a “player” in your community. You are making a significant contribution to the world around you. You are making a difference with your life and in the lives of other people. If your social and community status and involvement were ideal, how would you answer these questions?
1. What would you be doing?
2. What organizations would you be working with or contributing to?
3. What would be the causes you strongly believed in and supported, and how would you become more involved in those areas?
Just Do It!
The primary difference between high achievers and low achievers is “action orientation.” Men and women who accomplish tremendous deeds in life are intensely action oriented. They are moving all the time. They are always busy. If they have an idea, they take action on it immediately.
On the other hand, low achievers and nonachievers are full of good intentions, but they always have an excuse for not taking action today. It is well said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Examine yourself in terms of your personal inventory of skills, knowledge, talent, education, and ability. If you were developed to the highest level possible for you (and there were virtually no limit), five years from now answer these questions:
1. What additional knowledge and skills would you have acquired?
2. In what areas would you be recognized as absolutely excellent in what you did?
3. What would you be doing each day in order to develop the knowledge and skills you'd need to be one of the top performers in your field sometime in the future?
Once you have answered these questions, the next question you ask is: How? How do you attain the skills and expertise needed to lead your field in the years ahead?
Design Your Perfect Calendar
Decide how you would like to live your ideal lifestyle, day in and day out. Design your perfect calendar from January 1 to December 31:
1. What would you like to do on your weekends and vacations?
2. How much time would you like to take off each week, month, and year?
3. Where would you like to go?
4. How would you organize your year if you had no limitations and complete control over your time?
Proverbs 29:18 says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” What this means is that if you lack an exciting vision for your future, you will “perish” inside in terms of lacking motivation and enthusiasm for what you are doing. But the reverse of this is that with an exciting future vision, you will be continuously motivated and stimulated every day to take the actions necessary to make your ideal vision a reality.
Create Your Ideal Future
Remember that “happiness is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” When you have clear, exciting goals and ideals, you will feel happier about yourself and your world. You will be more positive and optimistic. You will feel internally motivated to get up and get going every morning because every step you are taking will be moving you in the direction of something that is important to you.
Resolve to think about your ideal future most of the time. Remember, the very best days of your life lie ahead. The happiest moments you will ever experience are still to come. The highest income you will ever earn is going to materialize in the months and years ahead. The future is going to be better than anything that may have happened in your past. There are no limits.
The clearer you can be about your long-term future, the more rapidly you will attract people and circumstances into your life to help make that future a reality. The greater clarity you have about who you are and what you want, the more you will achieve and the faster you will achieve it in every area of your life.
CREATE YOUR OWN FUTURE
1. Imagine that there is a solution to every problem, a way to overcome every limitation, and no limit on your achieving every goal you can set for yourself. What would you do differently?
2. Practice “back-from-the-future thinking.” Project forward five years and look back to the present. What would have to have happened for your world to be ideal?
3. Imagine your financial life was perfect in every way. How much would you be earning? How much would you be worth? What steps could you take, starting today, to make these goals a reality?
4. Imagine your family and personal life were perfect. What would it look like? What should you start doing more of, or less of, starting today?
5. Plan your perfect calendar. Design your year from January to December as if you had no limitations. What would you change, starting today?
6. Imagine that your levels of health and fitness were perfect in every way. What could you do, starting today, to make your vision for yourself into a reality?
7. What one action are you going to take immediately as the result of your answers to the questions above?