Traveling From Here to There

The entire field of time management was created to address the human tendency to prioritize the urgent over the important. We are opportunists by nature. Given the choice between dessert today and a beach body by summer (I didn’t say which summer), which one typically wins?

It’s not that we don’t think about the future at all. It’s just that we are typically more motivated to action by short-term circumstances. Depending on your relationship to time, short-term could mean this week or this year.

In contemporary life, most days present us with a flood of choices or decisions to be made. That’s how the phrase “decision fatigue” became part of our vocabulary. It’s why so many of us can’t answer a simple question like “what sounds good for dinner?” by the end of a workday. So naturally, thinking about a Second Rodeo usually gets scheduled for “later.”

When I talk about life planning, I’m not talking about what a lot of us get paid to do at work–using the skill sets of forecasting or developing long-range strategic plans. In fact, scrap that for now, otherwise it’s just more work that we won’t be compensated for–at least immediately.

It’s helpful to understand there are some powerful motivators at play that encourage our tendency to put off planning/thinking for our personal long-term future.

• We underestimate the strong gravitational pull of our current reality: Drifting with the flow is easy. Paddling against the current is hard. So we play games with ourselves as to why “later” will be better. As the popular meme says,

“Adulthood is saying

‘but after this week things will slow down a bit’

over and over until you die.”

We tell ourselves things like, I won’t stay in this soul-sucking job forever, just for now. That’s an especially tempting thought if the money is good. As long as we realize that Just for now soon becomes Where did the time go?

• We love keeping our options open: Those options may be vague and lacking substance. But hey, until I begin intentionally defining my future life, The sky’s the limit! Adventure is out there! Planning usually means eliminating some sub-optimal options to create space for the truly best options. It’s like pruning in the vineyard. Eliminating branches earlier in the growing season improves the quality of the remaining grapes, thereby improving the quality of the wine.

• We prefer our optimism straight up, untainted by reality: I’m sure it will all work out is a comforting thought. Selective memory reminds us of those times when it did, in fact, all work out. And yet there’s a surfeit of data to prove that hope is not an effective strategy.

• We see some complicated issues that need resolution first: Perhaps it’s an untenable marriage, insufficient financial resources, fear of failure, chronic health concerns–”later” will always be a preferable time to deal with those disturbing roadblocks on the way to our preferred future. And later works for a while, until these issues escalate and become urgent, in which case our options often become even more limited.

Hold up there, Mr. Second Rodeo guy. Haven’t you also written about the value of mindfulness? Now you want us to think about the future? Which is it? I’m glad you asked. Let’s play around with this idea–think of the difference between where you live and places you like to visit.

My home is right here, right now. Mindfulness simply means, as Ram Dass put it, “Be here now.” Deeply experiencing our current reality is key to self-regulating awareness, emotions, memory, stress, and anxiety. When we learn to focus our attention, we can observe our thoughts and feelings without judgement. This leads to better decision making and a capacity to be more fully engaged in the ordinary events that create the memorable fabric of our lives.

The future is a place I visit. I like to think of it as time travel. You don’t even need a time machine. Human beings have the unique ability to envision a future state, often in vivid detail. There’s nothing weird about this–no hypnosis, no hippy-dippy, woo-woo experiences. It’s a matter of harnessing the power of the human imagination.

Unregulated, that same imagination keeps us awake at night with worries and anxiety about scenarios that almost never happen. But with practice and control, our imagination can enable us to:

• Envision ourselves in a preferred future state…

• Work backwards to today…

• Thereby creating a path forward.

With time travel, I can anticipate obstacles, forks in the road. I no longer follow those paths that lead to a dead-end. I can address the why, who, what, where and how questions that turn dreams into reality. I have used this form of ‘time travel’ as a powerful tool in my coaching practice for years.

Home is comfortable for many of us. Home is what calls us back from wherever we’ve been. But staying home indefinitely ensures nothing will ever change. These trips to an imagined future don’t automatically require decisions, at least not yet. We’re just sightseeing at this phase, no commitments. I’ve had opportunity to visit a lot of interesting places on earth over the years. I’ve seen very few where I thought, I’d like to live here.

If you can let go of that corporate planning model (Smart Goals, KPIs, Strategic Initiatives, etc.) and just have fun exploring possible desired future states, you’ll probably find that anxiety about the whole thing begins to quickly fade. If it gets scary or uncomfortable, you can always come back home to recharge. However, the more you venture out, the more you exercise your imagination then journal about those experiences, the easier and less scary it becomes. You’ll be able to play out some promising scenarios, as well as reject those options that looked good yesterday but didn’t hold up under your growing awareness.

It sounds simple on paper; this isn’t necessarily an easy thing for some people to practice solo. Just like some people like to explore a new place on their own, and others benefit from a tour guide, engaging a coach for the journey makes these time travel expeditions more fun and less work. That’s why Second Rodeo exists. So call me and let’s book a guided tour, exploring your own preferred future!

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