10 Years of Realistic Foresight-How? (Part 2)

About two years ago, I wrote an article about developing ten years of realistic foresight, you can find it [Here].

The challenge— build a vision of the future that gives enough form to have a target to aim for, but not so much that it creates rigidity of HOW it has to happen.

I laid out a whole thing, journaling about what I want life to look like, and comparing notes along the way. And I figured that even if it took me 10 years to learn the skill of having 10 years of foresight, it was still a worthwhile pursuit.

Somewhere along the way, maybe a year or so into it, a little voice started whispering in my head. This voice, this intuition— it was telling me there’s something I missed in my pursuit of foresight. I had a big huge blindspot that seems so obvious now that I see the thing that was hiding.

Now, 2 years later, I’m hear to tell you what I’ve learned so far

I Got It All Wrong—oops

That’s right, I totally missed the mark and it took me over a year from the outset just to get clued in, and at least 3-4 months to formulate the fundamental problem and what to do about it.

Here’s the thing, I was sitting there thinking to myself

“Well, I’m trying to develop foresight. Why? So I can build the life I want. So building foresight means building a vision of the future that I want to experience. And the vantage point that I am creating from is my current position”

That was my first mistake I had the wrong frame of purpose and intent. My intention of developing foresight came from a place of creating a future without respect for the past. I was projecting outcomes from my current state, with complete disregard for what I’d already been through in life; despite knowing that past experience is often the most accurate baseline from which to predict future outcomes.

What’s worse, I was projecting outcomes that I wanted to happen outside of me while completely ignoring the outcomes that would have to occur inside of me.

For someone that loves preaching the glories of staring deeply into the mirror of reality, that’s a pretty big blindspot. The realization was not a pleasant experience, to say the least. Especially considering that it took a couple years to experience it.

But isn’t that how we learn? Through experience?

Two Years of Blindness— Now What?

It’s kinda hard to stomach, honestly. The point of this pursuit is to learn how to see the future clearly, and yet I spent two years being completely blind to what life looks like 10 years down the road. Although I suppose that 10 year mark is now only about 8 years away. And now it’s time to reflect and learn.

Lessons and learning are not synonyms. I say this often— people will go through life and experience something bad; something embarrassing, painful, humbling, or otherwise unfortunate— they’ll say “I learned my lesson,” and then go out and do the same shit all over again. They didn’t learn anything.

So what is to be learned from the last two years of being blind? I’ll just list it out and do my best to keep it concise.

1. It is foolish to create projections of external outcomes without acknowledging the internal conditions required

2. A person’s preferences can change dramatically and rapidly, and their innate disposition generally does not change, but it can evolve slowly.

3. Having foresight isn’t just about what you want to change or acquire, or who you want to become, it is also about seeing that which has been with you, is with you, and will continue to be with you as life continues to move forward. There is no magic reset button where everything that came with you just disappears instantaneously.

4. To have accurate foresight, you have to have reliable systems in your life that can stand the test of time

These are the lessons from the last two years that I’ve come to understand. Here is what learning looks like

1. When I create projections of future outcomes, I acknowledge the specific internal conditions require— and do the work necessary to generate those conditions.

2. When I assess the accuracy of my projections, I clearly differentiate between preferences and disposition; and accept that they change at different rates, whether I like it or not.

3. When I create a projection, I don’t just look at where I am and where I want to be, I use both my current and historic disposition as a benchmark from which I asses what will be with me in 10 years if nothing changes, and then refine from there

4. I do the work to generate circumstances in my life that have the capacity to perpetuate and support me for at least 10 years, if not longer.

That’s it. Pretty simple, right? Well, it looks a lot easier on paper

Despite Blindness, It’s Not All Bad…

In part one I clearly stated what I want…

”I want to have meaningful relationships with high quality people, I want to have an abundance of opportunity for adventure, and I want to make a positive impact on the people around me.”

Now, even though I have no idea of exactly what life looks like in 10 years, I have still managed to check all of those boxes. I have meaningful relationships with high quality people, and do not maintain low quality relationships. I have experienced all sorts of adventure, albeit not the kind you see all over social media. And I have made a positive impact on the lives of the people around me.

So all in all, I’m not doing too bad— but there’s still a lot of work to be done.

I’ll see ya on the one, even if it takes another two years…

-David