If You're Making Up the Future Anyway, Why Not Imagine Something Amazing?
The Power of Positive Visioning
For the past couple of years (maybe decades), I’ve been using a simple mental framework that has dramatically changed how I approach stress and planning.
It’s an idea that’s worth sharing, and in the following paragraphs, I’ll serve up my own interpretation of how it works.
Can you Predict the Future?
Seriously. Can we ever really say with 100% certainty what will happen a year from now? How about a month from now? A week? A day? A minute?
Heck, when you get right down to it, do we honestly even know exactly what’s going to happen 10 second from now?
Sure, most of us can make a pretty good guess about what we think the future will bring … especially in the near term.
But unless you’re a clairvoyant who answered “yes” to the above questions, isn’t it fair to say that when it come to forecasting our short term destinies …
We’re basically Making it All Up.
Are you with me so far?
Can you accept the premise that essentially every single thing we think we “know” about our future, is, in truth, only a reality in our own heads?
The problem isn’t that we’re making it up; the problem is what we choose to make up.”
We humans constantly attempt to predict the future; through the prism of our own unique past experiences. But here’s the really sad part; in making both short, and long term prognostications too many of us tend to expect the worst.
We stress and worry about things that Haven’t Even Happened Yet.
Wow, how silly is that?
Doesn’t the past and present already supply us with more than enough (real or perceived) anxiety?
Why should we expend any of our precious energy pestered by visions that exist only in our heads?
In fact, I’ll take it one step further.
If you believe my postulation that we’re making it all up anyway, then doesn’t it just make sense to use Positive Visioning?
If we’re Making Up the Future Anyway, why not imagine Good Stuff?
This isn’t about ignoring problems; it’s about managing your mental energy.
If we agree that worry about the future is stress over things that don’t even exist yet, it’s wasted effort. Instead of rehearsing worst-case scenarios, let’s consciously practice Positive Visioning.
When it comes to the future, I strongly suspect that it’s much, much more productive to just go sit in front of your Dream Board and try to conjure up the most amazing, fantastically great life that you can possibly Imagine.
A Dream Board isn’t just decoration—it’s a tool for intentionally writing the script for your future.
Imagine well, and I’ll see you on the bright side.
Todd
p.s. I “stole” (and rewrote/updated) this post from one of my old blogs. I think I first wrote about this 20+ years ago. It’s amazing how many things from my old vision boards have come true …
But not always in exactly the ways I thought they would play out. It’s probably not off base to say that the dream is more important than the how when it comes to positive visioning.
Have you made a dream board?
Do you have any personal examples of dreams or goals that came true, but not like you thought they would?