Future Hindsight
When each day's intensity seems greater than the last, how do you find perspective? This week's video offers a tool you can use right now to act with greater confidence and intention.
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When each day's insanity seems greater than the last, how do you find perspective? This week let's go Off Balance On Purpose to the future.
We're running out of adjectives to describe our days. Unprecedented. Unfathomable. Historic. All true. But what is also true is that these days and this time will come to pass. The world will get through it. You will survive, and when you do, you will be able to look back on what you've been through and tell the story.
Today let's use a tool I call "Future Hindsight" in order to find your footing and path forward. Here's how it works. Instead of fixating on the news, chaos, turmoil and uncertainty of these rapids we're currently running, I want you to look downstream to that calm pool that awaits at the end of the channel. Because it's there. Trust me. We will arrive at that moment. Now, however this turns out, whether the ride is easier or harder than you expect right now, you will eventually be able to look back with experience and process what happened.
Future hindsight will reveal what you did well, and what you wish you would have done differently. So today, using this mental exercise, you can capture some of those insights so that you can do more of what you're proud of and less of what you're not.
Looking back from the future you may wish that you had more carefully followed safety protocols. Or used this precious time more productively. You could have developed a new skill or completed a project. You could have worked on your health, or focused more intently on the people you love.
As the Coronavirus peaks in the next few weeks, things will get worse, before they get better. But they will get better. And looking back from then, you may may wish you had strengthened your faith, or forgiven someone who wronged you, or reached out to more friends. Or maybe you’ll wish you had kept a journal, so that when you tell future generations about this incredible time, you lived through you can do it justice.
You don't have to know the exact ending to craft a better story. You can use future hindsight right now to rise above the fear and chaos, use better words, take wiser actions, be both the thoughtful observer and participant. And hang in there. It’s going to be OK. Until next week, stay Off Balance On Purpose.
