Looking back from the future

An exercise conducted during a recent Franklin Covey Planner workshop was very useful and motivational, and I'd like you to try it and consider writing about it in your blog this week.

The premise is to imagine yourself talking to an acquaintance five years in the future. In 2016, you bump into someone you haven't seen since you graduated from the Art Institute: an instructor, former classmate, or even me. That person asks what you're doing now, five years after graduation.

What do you say?

In my case, for example, in 2016, I might tell a former Art Institute acquaintance that I completed my PhD in 2012 and went on to become dean at the Art Institute of Indianapolis. I tell that future person that my husband and I sold our houses and purchased one between Indy and Lafayette. I say my oldest grandson is nine and in the fourth grade and his little brother is seven and in the first grade. Both are playing baseball and soccer, and I go to all their games.

You get the idea. You try to put yourself in your life in 2016. How old are you? Where do you live? What is going on for you and those around you? What have you accomplished? Try to imagine it with as much detail as possible. Then describe it in writing.

This exercise is a type of visualizing. It helps us "feel" what our goals might be like and what it might take to reach them. Try this exercise and blog about it. Include whatever is appropriate in your plan of action.