“Where do you see yourself five years from now?”
Wow. What a question. It’s just about as cliché as an interview can get and it’s usually answered with responses just as trite.
But humor me. Ask yourself (don’t worry, I’m going somewhere with this) where you see yourself or where you think you will be exactly five years from now.
Go ahead, take as long as you need, I’ll wait.
Done thinking? Good. You’ve just predicted your future.
Did you even know you could do that? It’s a weird thought, but you’ve just predicted exactly what and who you will be five years from now.
And if you’re thinking to yourself, “well, that’s not true. I didn’t predict anything, that’s just wishful thinking,” then you did it wrong. Because this annoying little question that underpaid middle managers use to trip up recent college grads is actually an incredible tool you can use to dictate your future.
But you have to do it the right way.
You can’t just say, “I’m going to be an astronaut in five years,” and then BOOM, your on the moon. It’s a lot more complicated than that.
So let’s look at some of your answers and find out the right way to turn these predictions into reality.
First of all, to do this little trick just right, you’ve got to make the right kinds of predictions. That means that if any of your answers sounded like, “I want a better job,” or “I want to make more money,” then you’ve got to start over. Because subjective goals like that are virtually impossible to achieve. What is a “better job?” How do you quantify that? What is “more money?” How much do you want?
Obviously you’ve got to stick within reason, but you should really be as specific as possible.
Say you see yourself owning a fitness business in five years. If that’s the future you want to predict then you’ve got to be specific about as many details as possible. What kind of business exactly do you plan to own? Let’s say it’s a Fit Body Boot Camp. Well then you need to think through every detail.
Where is your location going to be? When exactly will you launch your location? Are you going to have a business partner? Will you need a loan? How many clients will you have in five years? Is there a type of training you personally want to focus on? Will you hire trainers or do the training yourself? And on and on…
Do you see what I’m doing here? You’ve probably realized by now that we aren’t actually predicting the future. What I’m really trying to do is impart upon you the skills that will allow you to make your future whatever you want it to be. (Which, I think, is even more powerful.)
But to make that happen, as I’m sure you can tell by now, you must first learn how to set the right kinds of goals: specific goals.
Setting ultra specific goals generates a road map that leads through all the twists and turns between you and the future you want. Because when you flesh out all of these specific goals there won’t be any questions and there won’t be any maybes. You will know exactly where you are, exactly what your next step should be, and exactly how to make that next step, because you’ve planned it all out.
This kind of planning will equip you with the tools needed to take action right now— today. And that’s our next skill required for predicting your future: taking action.
Your increasingly specific goal setting will show you the long path between you and your future, but none of that means a thing until you take your first step onto that path. And that’s what I mean by taking action. Once you’ve got it all figured out you have to start the work.
This can certainly be the hardest part. Planning is easy, especially when you get excited for something new and when you start envisioning the fruition of your dreams. But then reality sets in and you realize you have to start taking all those baby steps that will lead to your five year, ten year, lifetime goals.
Force your predictions to come true by taking the daily action they require.
But what about smaller goals? What about some short term accomplishments you would like to have or need to have today, this week or later this month? The awesome thing about this prediction method is that it works just as well for short term goals.
If you need to finish one particular assignment by the end of the day then use this method. Begin by envisioning yourself completing that assignment. Predict the exact time of day you will be finished, where you will be once finished, the ultimate quality of the assignment, and when you know just how you want it to turn out you’ll be able to map your day’s journey to that point. Then, just like with your lifetime goals, you take action.
It provides a sense of control over those areas where you feel you have none. You can dominate assignments rather than dread them and you can confidently anticipate the future because you’ll know just where you are on your path to success. It’s a remarkably freeing and empowering sensation.
It certainly isn’t rocket science, and I’ll bet a lot of you are already thinking and operating with similar systems. But when you make it a point to operate this way and you force this type of thinking to become habit, you’ll be impressed by your ability to accomplish whatever you desire.
This exercise forces you to get to know yourself better than you’ve ever even wanted to know yourself. When you plan this carefully and you monitor your success this closely you’ll learn exactly how you work. You’ll find out where your areas of strength lie and you’ll be forced to intimate yourself with your weaknesses. You’ll know what tasks will fly by, which ones will take extra effort, and you’ll be able to predict when you’re going to need some help.
All of this familiarization will make you more efficient and more predictable, which will make successfully predicting your future that much easier.
Committed to your success,
Bedros