See Into Your Future With This Simple Tool

Feeling a bit stuck in your life? Not sure which path to take? We’ve all been there. Nothing feels worse than sitting on the fence (apart from the fact that it leaves marks); so why not play Mystic Meg and imagine what the first step looks like. Here’s how:

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Charles Duhigg, author of Smarter Faster Better, recommends ‘building mental models – telling ourselves stories – about what we expect to see’. Envisioning what will happen when we undertake certain actions, the potential obstacles along the way and ways of pre-empting them, he maintains, ‘makes it easier to decide where your focus should go when your plan encounters real life’.

What’s more, by considering the multiple outcome scenarios, much like those of the Choose Your Own Adventure kids’ books, we’re exposed to a wider (and sometimes contradictory) set of possibilities, and, in turn, are inclined to make more considered choices.

Just remember to come back to the present…