You may have been asked, or heard someone asked, “If you could talk to your younger self, what advice would you give them?”.
This is a fun exercise that helps remind us that what we thought was the worst possible experience actually made us who we are today. That all our fretting does not serve us. We often would tell our younger selves to have more fun, worry less and go for what we want.
What if, instead of giving your past self advice from where you are today, you could talk to your future self and find out what they know?
What if you could actually get career advice from your future self that helps with your career choices today?
What would your future career self have to say?
Bring in Episodic Future Thinking (EFT)
Episodic Future Thinking refers to the capacity to project yourself into the future and pre-experience forthcoming events.
Basically, going back to the future 🏎.
(You can read one of the research papers on EFT HERE where they looked at using EFT to see if it could help criminal delinquents delay taking smaller current gains in favor of larger future gains thereby making different choices in the present because they were able to imagine a better future.)
Try this Back to Your Career Future Imagination Exercise
Step 1: Imagine yourself in your most recent past, within the last week or two, when you were at work or working on your job search. What is your office environment like? What were you doing? What were you wearing? Who was around you? What did you like about it? What did you not like? How were you feeling?
Write this down.
Step 2: Imagine yourself in the near future, say next week, at work or working on your job search. What is your office environment like? What were you doing? What are you wearing? What did you like about it? What did you not like? How were you feeling?
Write this down.
You should find that writing down what happened last week was not hard. You were there. You had experienced what you wrote about.
You will likely also find that imagining what next week at work will be like was not that difficult either. More of the same.
But notice, in Step 2 you were actually entering the future. Bam!
Step 3: Now imagine yourself at 75. You are looking back over your career and jotting down some highlights. What were your favorite things that you remember about your career? What were the accomplishments that you were most proud of? What awards might you have received? What difference did you make in the lives of others and the world? What were you doing? What were you wearing? Who was around you? What did you like about it? What did you not like? How were you feeling?
Write this down.
Step 4: if you compare where you are today in your career with how your 75-year-old self was describing your career, what do you notice? Are there things you are doing now that have no part in your future career? Are there dreams that surfaced that you have had but have not acted on yet?
Write this down.
Step 5: Using what your Future Self told you about your career, write down at least 2 things that you are going to stop doing because they have no part in your imagined future career. Also, write down at least 2 things that you will start doing because when your future self talked about them you were reminded of your dreams and how much you really want to make them a reality.
Are you willing to carve out the time needed to begin to work towards those things that stood out as important to your 75-year-old self?
For me, I really saw clearly where I need to focus. My guess is that there are small steps you have been putting off that you can take today that will create your imagined future career.
It is time to get Back to Your Future by taking actions today. 75 never felt so good!
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