How Your Imagination Can Make You More Successful
By: Greg Longoria
Tags: Life Lessons, Self Improvement, Life, Self, Creativity

As we approach the end of a tough, tough year, what keeps you motivated? Maybe it takes a bit of daydreaming, daydreaming about a better life? Did you know that your view of the future determines your future success? It’s true. Your view of the future shapes your current behavior, which in turn drives your future results.

Years ago, whenever a business colleague and I got stuck on a complicated problem, he would say, let’s pursue the art of the possible.

I love that phrase because creative thinking is art, and thinking about the future is to think about the possible.

Creating your future is to pursue the art of the possible. Your future is yours to paint and to write. Your life is your canvas and your journal. So close your eyes and imagine your future — what is your “possible?”

Your future depends on this

Prospection is our ability to pre-experience the future by simulating it in our minds. (Greater Good Science Center “GGSC” at UC Berkeley)

Twenty years ago, my wife and I dreamed of moving to the sun-soaked beach life in Southern California. Over the next year, I lobbied my boss hard and finally convinced him to approve my relocation to our posh office on Wilshire Boulevard.

I walked into our Chicago city townhome late that evening bursting with excitement to give my wife our update. What I didn’t anticipate was her surprisingly good news— we were expecting our second, precious little girl! In a blink of an eye, we put our California dream on indefinite hold.

But as they say, you can always dream, right? And that’s where the skill of prospection comes into play — prospection is our ability to envision the future; to plan, predict, and daydream.

Over the following decades, we kept our California dream alive. We drafted and edited our future story, and our future narrative affected the decisions we made over those many years. The picture we painted motivated and inspired us when our future got hazy.

Unknowingly, my wife and I were employing what is known as prospective psychology.

Prospective psychology surmises that both your present and future is shaped by how you think about your future.

Prospective psychology flies directly in the face of historical practice. For decades psychologists explained that your past experiences affect your present, which in turn affects your future. Effectively, you’re a prisoner to your past experiences.

Do you see the important distinction between these two approaches?

Experience the future before it happens

If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up somewhere else. (Yogi Berra)

I became fascinated by the idea of my future driving my present while reading Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s book Personality Isn’t Permanent. Professor Martin Seligman conducted much of the original research on prospection and outlined his findings in the 2013 paper Navigating Into the Future or Driven by the Past.

If you are a future-focused person, you get why I’m so excited by this idea. In any so-called personality test, I score highest in future-mindedness, planning, and strategic thinking. Maybe it sounds geeky to you, but I’ve done an annual life plan for the last 10+ years. Envisioning the future comes naturally to me.

Now, if you’re not naturally future-focused, don’t lose hope! Research done by Chandra Sripada demonstrates your brain is wired for prospection too; it’s just a matter of how you use this gift of imagination.

Here’s what’s important to know — prospection plays a massive role in your life.

According to the paper Future-Mindedness by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, prospection directly impacts your ability to:

• Imagine different futures.

• Make decisions based on different outcomes.

• Experience happiness in anticipation of future events.

• Envisioning the benefits of relationships and community.

In short, prospection affects your decisions, happiness, relationships, and ultimately your future.

Pursue your possible

A plan in the heart of a man is like deep water, but a man of understanding draws it out. (Proverbs 20:5 NLTse)

Fast forward twenty years into my story, and today we live 50 yards from the Pacific Ocean with the sound of the rolling surf and the smell of saltwater lulling us to sleep every night. I run along the sandy beach or in the green coastal canyons almost every day, and I swim in the dark blue Pacific. I’ve dedicated this season of life to sculpting a whole new set of dreams and goals.

So as you sit on the precipice of a new year, I encourage you to exercise your gift of prospection. Imagine your future. Focus on your future self. Outline the goals and dreams that inspire and excite you. Picture the future you dream of across all areas of your life — family, personal, health, financial, spiritual, intellectual, and social.

Take out your canvas and start drawing. Write something beautiful about your life. Pursue your art of the possible.

Be wise and successful