In the first part of this series, we went back in time and fixed the past. Kind of like Marty McFly in Back to the Future, where he had to make sure that his parents got together and, in the process, actually improved their future (and his present).
Now we’re going to travel into the future – kind of like Marty McFly in Back to the Future II, where he got to encounter his middle-aged loser self and learn valuable lessons that helped him avoid becoming that guy. Except what we’re going to do is encounter our future successful selves, and learn valuable lessons that will help us to become that person. So, not very like Back to the Future II at all, really.
(And before you ask, we’re not going back to the Old West in the final part of the series, either.)
Anyway, the technique we’ll use is called Future Pacing by Neuro-Linguistic Programming people, who always have to give things fancy names. It’s simply imagining yourself into the future.
If you’ve done my AIM Your Mind self-hypnosis course, you’ll be familiar with the idea of a “future imaginary memory”. If not, here’s how it works.
The Future Imaginary Memory Technique
First, think about some way you would like your life to be different in the future.
Now imagine watching your future self, who has achieved that goal. You’re watching yourself in the third person at this point. Your future self is moving around, going about a normal day – normal in the new situation, that is, of having attained your goal.
This isn’t an idealised still image in a ray of golden light from heaven. It’s a realistic movie.
Imagine it as clearly as you can. If you aren’t a very visual person and don’t visualise very clearly, that’s OK, but think about how the future you moves, walks, stands, smiles, gestures. Think about what your future voice sounds like. Think about the way in which your future self interacts with other people.
Walk around your future self, as if you have an imaginary movie camera that you control, that looks at your future self from all angles.
Got that? Good.
photo credit: Clauz Jardim
The Cable to the Future
Now you’re going to do the next step – making a connection between your future and your present. I call this the Cable to the Future.
From your position in the present, find yourself with a cable in your hand. One end is connected somehow to your navel, and the other end has a hook.
Now throw the cable through time so that it reaches your future self, the self you want to be, and connects the two of you, navel to navel.
Now wind the cable in, however that works for you in your imagination. As you do so, you find yourself easily and naturally and inevitably drawn towards your ideal future self.
Eventually, you meet and merge. And now you feel what it’s like to be that person, to move like them, to stand like them, to talk like them, to gesture and smile and interact with people like your ideal self.
Just enjoy that for a bit.
Imagination is Like Memory
The reason that we pay so much attention to storytellers in every human culture is this: Vivid imagination is fundamentally like memory. (It’s not identical, of course, but there’s very substantial overlap in the brain systems that are used. If you’re into neuropsychology – and who isn’t? – there’s a recent study by Donna Rose Addis of Auckland University and colleagues about the differences and similarities.)
So when we hear or read a story, or watch a play or a movie (which is only a story presented particularly vividly to our imagination), in a sense we absorb it as if it was real. That’s why teachers of all religious traditions have used stories. By imagining ourselves as the characters in stories, we learn the lessons they learned as if we’d experienced the events ourselves.
And exactly the same applies to our own vivid imaginings. That’s why Future Pacing and the Cable to the Future work so well.
photo credit: Lee Jordan
Next time, we’ll go on a Motivational Time Tour. Until then, practice connecting to your future successful self.
Technorati Tags: future pacing, imagination, memory, time travel
Related posts:
- Better Living Through Time Travel (Part 1): Fixing the PastHave you ever thought about what you’d change if you...
- Better Living Through Time Travel (Part 3): The Motivational Time TourIf you’ve seen the movie Back to the Future II...
- Living Skillfully Best of 2010, Part 2(This and yesterday’s post were going to be one big...
- Less alcohol, more movement recommended to prevent future health crisisTwo interesting articles on BBC Health recently. The first talks...
- Pain management part 2: Imagination techniquesThis is a follow-up to Pain management part 1: Attention...