You can’t predict the future; But you can create it

It’s time to create, not plan. Your future is yet to be made and it’s up to you, instead of wasting energy trying to predict it, turn your energy into creating it.

Many people think that our future is largely determined by our past experiences and that we can do very little to transform our destiny.

The reality is that we can define our own future if we take a more active role in it. That is, being aware that the future is not a mere projection of the past, but something new that we build every day and that emerges as a result of our actions and omissions. It all starts by believing in our own ability to impact on the future, and to undertake, step by step, the path towards a desired future.

My proposal in today’s reflection is very simple; Since your future is not programmed but something that is to be built and depends on you, you must devote all your energies to building it.

Can we create the future?

To create our own future, we must first take an active role in it: not let others create it for us, but get to work today. Above all, because if we let others create the future for us, they will hardly do so without first prioritizing their own interests. In other words, if we don’t have a personal agenda, it’s very likely that we’re part of someone else’s agenda.

Secondly, we must approach the future to its full potential; The curiosity and open-mindedness necessary to interact with the outside world, without fear of making mistakes, aware that we learn from our mistakes and that only by exploring the unknown can we find new perspectives and discover new realities that will help us achieve a profound change in ourselves and in our lives.

Thirdly, it is about experiencing change as an opportunity to reimagine a desired future. focusing on what gives meaning to our lives and is important to us, taking smart risks when others choose safety, moving resources from the past to the future and learning from our mistakes, transforming the contingencies we encounter along the way into future opportunities.

The future can be in many places and nowhere. We all have some degree of certainty about the past, but a lot of uncertainty about the future. Those who know me for my disruptive approaches often tell me that I live in the future, as if it were something that is to come. However, I like to say that In times of uncertainty and rapid change, the future is something that is already here and that we simply do not see, because our mental models prevent us from seeing it. By observing our children, their way of living, relating, sharing on their social networks, we can anticipate many of the behaviors, skills, and competencies that we will need to thrive in the new reality.

I’ve been writing about personal innovation as a way of life for years. My intention is to make it easier for people to turn different visions of the future into unique perspectives with meaning, and then prioritize and ground possible futures in a desired future, a vision that acts as the destination of everything we do today, endowing it with meaning and intentionality. To then transfer that vision of the ideal future, the one we would like to actually happen, into concrete actions on a map of personal innovation.

Three Steps to Creating Your Desired Future

By following these three steps, you will be able to shape a desired future and change the status of “victim of the future” to “protagonist of your own future”.

1. Adopt an entrepreneurial attitude

Facing the future, we always have the choice to adopt four different attitudes: the passive ostrich who undergoes change, the reactive firefighter who fights the fire once it has been declared, the cautious insurer who prepares for foreseeable changes because he knows that repair is more expensive than prevention, the active entrepreneur who tries to bring about the desired changes.

My proposal is that to start your journey into the future, you adopt an entrepreneurial attitude. This will be our starting point, the observatory that will allow us to explore the new reality, which will help us to develop new perspectives and to begin to glimpse new possible futures.

This outburst will necessarily result in an increase in the level of awareness about what we can do, what is possible, and what can contribute to our progress towards a desired future.

Unfortunately, this entrepreneurial attitude is not the most frequent because if everything goes well, we don’t need it, and if everything goes wrong, it is of no use to us. We generally see the future as a reality external to us, in front of which we have to take a position and to do so we try to predict it in order to plan for it

When we use an entrepreneurial attitude to approach our future, we start from a different premise: we are the ones who create our own future.

This is the natural way of reasoning in entrepreneurs and innovators. The entrepreneurial attitude is particularly useful in complex and uncertain moments such as the current ones, since it moves us directly to action, to stop feeling victims of circumstances and encourage us to become true protagonists of our lives, convinced that to the extent that we are the ones who create our own future, we do not need to predict it to control it.

2. Discover your desired future.

This stage of the journey consists of determining where we want to go, making a personal foresight to build a bridge between the vision of the future and the present reality.

The goal is to discover a desired future from several possible futures. To do this, we must discover what gives meaning and purpose to our lives, look far ahead and venture out to take action and become the protagonists of a personalized future based on what motivates us, what we are and desire, what we believe and can do, our skills and superpowers, and above all what we like and are passionate about.

Foresight is a way of dealing with complexity and uncertainty. It’s about projecting your current reality from different personal, family, and professional areas identifying potential bifurcation points, with the aim of discovering what are the possible, achievable and desirable futures. To prioritize a desired future, a feasible and possible future to realize, and make it the raison d’être of the present. Renewed purpose and desire give meaning to present experiences and are the driving force of action.

Prospecting will provide us, among other things, with new perspectives, new points of view that, sooner rather than later, will end up translating into new ideas – it will allow you to reflect on the impact of changes in your life and on your professional model of value creation, and will help you define new opportunities for personal development.

Here are some of the key questions that will allow you to carry out the personal prospecting process: How to interact with the new reality?, How can we prepare ourselves to live in unstable contexts?, How to prepare ourselves to manage the unpredictable?, How to develop new personal skills to ensure my future employability?, How to be perceived and valued in a globalized world?, How to create time to explore the future?.

3. Make it happen

We make the future a reality through action. The present was built in the past and the future is built in the present and the challenges and opportunities of tomorrow are determined by today’s decisions.

However, the great uncertainty we are experiencing can lead us to total paralysis, or to make decisions driven by tactical impulses, reacting in the short term to avoid the threats that arise along the way. It is necessary to have that ability to react quickly to adapt to an environment that is not easy: if we do not survive, it is clear that we will not be able to get anywhere. But in order to move forward steadily (without lurching) towards our desired future, it is necessary to give intention to each of those actions that we are taking.

Be bold, be curious and experiment. Human beings, like all living beings, are true natural platforms for innovation. It is clear that some people are more adaptable, more predisposed to change, more open to new ideas, and themselves more creative than others. But the truth is that we all have the fundamental ability to be innovative and that we can all grow professionally.

Overcome the fear of failure and making mistakes. Don’t get obsessed with making everything perfect the first time: it’s impossible. Eliminates pressure. Consider that your decisions are temporary, and that later you will return to them again. Be tolerant of your mistakes. Leave “risk management” to the banks. There is no greater risk today than sitting still watching others decide your life.

Dare to try new things on a small enough scale so that failure doesn’t become a matter of survival. Launch your “lifeboat”, or in other words, introduce small innovation initiatives into your life that allow you to experience emerging trends without negatively affecting the stability of your personal “aircraft carrier”. In this way, you will be able to continue on your path without compromising your fundamental objectives, while creating the new skills that will help you ensure your future employability.

This is the time to build our future based on our experiences of the pandemic, take advantage of the lessons learned from this period and increase our resilience to live with the new reality and redesign our desirable future. In this previous reflection you will find 10 tips to reinvent ourselves and grow professionally, to become active protagonists of our future. A future that we cannot plan, but we can devote all our energies to building it.