How to Get Better Outcomes by Rewiring Your Imagination
Whenever you think about something in the future, you are telling yourself a story. Future stories as I like to call them are narratives that your imagination plays out for you. They’re like little movies, directed by your imagination. Sometimes they’re quiet, and you don’t even notice, and sometimes you find yourself completely lost in a daydream for five minutes.
During the course of a normal day, you probably tell yourself hundreds of tiny future stories. Things as simple as, “this meeting is going to suck,” or “tonight is going to be awesome,” and sometimes as big and complicated as a mental chess match, like, “it’s been two days since I sent that email, and since I haven’t gotten a response, that means they probably don’t give a shit, so I should do this, then they’ll do that, but then I run the risk of upsetting this person, BLA BLA BLA BLA.”
These imagination-directed short films are highly influential on our behavior, and thus play a big role in our outcomes. It’s a domino effect: future stories influence our actions which influence our outcomes.
Unfortunately for many of us, our future stories are often riddled with self-doubt, defeatism, and victimization, like:
“There is no way they will listen to me.”
“This meeting is going to suck.”
“I’m going to be so pissed if Person X did Thing Y.”
“It’s beyond my control, I’m just getting screwed.”
“This pitch is going to be a disaster, I’m not prepared.”
“Fred Wilson and Marc Andreessen would never invest in me.”
My future stories are generally self-shit-talk, unfortunately.
The good news is, that future stories are absolutely and categorically fictional. They are powerful and often super believable and convincing, but they are fiction.
Take this example: “I’m about to drive to work, and I’ll be there in 20 minutes.” Seems totally believable based on past experience, right? But the reality is, it’s pure conjecture. You have no fucking clue what will actually happen in the next 20 minutes. You could cruise to work, end up in traffic for 3 hours, or wind up in jail in Mexico. WHO KNOWS.
So of course you’re asking: if future stories are so powerful, but they’re totally fictional, then why don’t we just tell ourselves better future stories?
Well you precocious reader you, I have developed just such a practice. One that re-writes future stories so they contribute to better outcomes, working for you, not against you. This practice takes, well, a lot of practice. But once it’s habit, it works automatically all day everyday, and has a major positive impact on your feelings, behavior, and outcomes. Here goes:
1) NOTICE
Start to notice when you’re telling yourself a future story, even a tiny one, and do not resist it or try to re-write it (yet). Just pay attention to what the story line is.
2) ARTICULATE
Articulate the storyline clearly to yourself. Say it to yourself like: “I’m telling myself a story about how the rest of my day is going to be shitty because my morning sucked.”
3) TWEAK
Now that you have specific awareness of the story, simply allow your imagination to create an alternate story. Try out “my morning sucked, but there’s a pretty good chance the rest of my day could be better.” Just a subtle tweak.
4) CHOOSE
Once you’re adept at creating alternate stories about the same future scenario, you can begin choosing the one that most closely aligns with what you really want. Substitute the winner in as the future storyline of choice.
AND KABOOM!
You just hot-wired your brain to inspire and support your future self. Stories like “I definitely would not like that guy,” become stories like “I should give that guy a chance, who knows, we could be best friends a year from now.” Tweaks like these, times 50 per day, times 7 days a week… well, I’m no math whiz but it’s a huge ROI.
In the end, what you’re doing is taking advantage of the power and influence of your own imagination, and putting it to work toward the outcomes you really want.
It’s crazy powerful, like hiring your own brain as a full-time helper. It’s giving your future self the best shot you can. And it’s certainly better than the passive status quo of letting your future stories run wild without you having a say in them.
FOOTNOTE: This practice emerged from my daily meditation practice, and it’s rooted in the kind of awareness that meditation builds. It’s also influenced by what I’ve learned from reading Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance. (That is an Amazon affiliate link, my first time using one. If you click it and buy the book, I make like a billion dollars or something, so thanks!)
