The best way to predict the future....

Now is the time of year when people want to make predictions about the future. And I am a huge proponent of that as well. Predicting the future is fun way to hone and check your thinking skills. Predictions also allows you to mentally prepare for the future by creating a picture of it so that when things begin to happen you have already started planning for it. Strategic planners call this effect “creating a memory of the future”. So as you see I am big fan of predicting the future as an exercise. But one point that is important to remember with predictions is that you may be dealing with things that are in our areas or spheres of interest we usually do not deal with things that are in our sphere of influence. Or said differently we may care about it but cannot do anything about it to impact the result.

So if you want to accurately predict the future think about the world we control. So when thinking about your predictions it is OK to look at who may win the Super Bowl or what may happen in the November elections but these are not items where will spend our energy because we have no influence. When thinking about 2010 I want you to think about what you can control and think about your predictions there. Abraham Lincoln said “the best way to predict the future is to make it” – and we should all take this advice to heart.

While we may care about many areas we should really focus our forward thinking on the areas that we can control and execute plans to make that future happen. It is very empowering to remind ourselves that we do control our futures in many ways and we should grab that ability and take advantage of it every day. So you and your team’s sphere of influence is take this time to make a bold and specific prediction in your mind, make sure you can control that prediction and spend the year making it happen. It is a great opportunity to focus on that which matters and that which you can do and drive your way to the future you want to see happen.

And our whole advantage comes from our focus and this gives us the ability to be the best in the world at what we do. So in looking forward to the year be focused on what you can control and then see that future you want and then go about making it – it really is the best way to predict the future.

Have a great weekend