Building The Future Me
One of the advantages of us spending more time at home is that we have more time to think about the goals that we haven’t quite managed to kick-start ourselves towards achieving.
You might be thinking about adopting a healthier lifestyle or taking up a new activity? Perhaps a change of career, or gearing yourself up for a promotion? Ultimately, one of the first stumbling blocks we come up against is wondering, where do I set that goalpost? How do I build towards that?
Sometimes we have to imagine ourselves having achieved the thing we’re after, metaphorically stepping in to the future — getting a real sense of what it would be like to have got our goal and then walking back from that point in time, returning to the ‘current me’ understanding all the actions we would have taken to get to our intended destination.
Whatever it is you want to achieve, the answer of course is to simply carve out the time to do it. Actually set some time aside, now. Sounds easy right? However, taking action to realise our goals, especially those which sit further down on the priority list — whilst competing with crazy diaries and 24/7 lifestyles — is often easier said than done.
A useful exercise to help get the ball rolling is to write your own ‘future me’ letter i.e. write yourself a letter from ‘you in six months time’ in which you offer guidance about how to get to where you want to be. Think of some helpful advice and encouragement you might give to a friend in the same position.
Start by outlining the idea of how you’d like things to be in six months. Perhaps it’s something work related you’d like to focus on — say becoming more confident giving presentations. The idea is that you read the letter and put it somewhere safe to find and read again in six months time.
The idea behind walking a time line or writing ourselves letters is that in the process we gain clarity about what it is we really want and how it will allow us to feel and think about ourselves, it also tunes our mind and body into consciously and less consciously working towards achieving our aims.
So, now’s the time to take action! Write the letter … it’s a great start and shows that you have the intention to realise your goal(s). File it somewhere to be found in six months, make a diary note to look it out, and then notice how everything you begin to do will be in service of you becoming and/or doing the thing you seek to achieve. You are on your way!
There’s no time like the present to create your future.
Tania Watson is the founder of Creative Coaching and an executive coach, organisational consultant and leadership specialist. Creative Coaching is a successful company dedicated to the development of senior leaders in organisations through one to one coaching, intact team development and group facilitation. If you or someone from your organisation would like to have a no obligation conversation about how Creative Coaching may be able to help, please email Tania directly at tania@twcreativecoaching.com.
