Hi ,
“Every day for a week, in fifteen-minute stretches, I wrote down my thoughts about the future. This gave me a snapshot of my future thinking, which fell into three categories.
Sometimes I was fantasizing, I had big thoughts that were pure fun and entertainment about a fast convertible, next summer's vacation, or retirement on the beach. These gave me a quick high- sometimes followed by a bit
of a low.
At other times I was dwelling: I hyper focused my future thoughts on the bad things that might happen, such as struggling to get a job, taking thirty years to pay off my student loans, or never being able to retire. These made me anxious.
And sometimes my thoughts balanced fantasizing and dwelling, which were exciting thoughts about my future even while I acknowledged the challenges before me.
That's when I was hoping.
Hoping felt different than the other types of future thinking. When hoping, I felt compelled to act. Hope came along with a whole rush of plans for moving toward that future."
How are you spending most of your future thinking these days?
Fantasizing? Dwelling? Or hoping? What's one little thing you can do to
optimize?
