Why Envisioning First vs. Planning?
According to the Psychologist Regina Pally, our brain non-consciously predicts what is most likely to happen and sets in motion perceptions, emotions, behaviors and choices best adapted to what is expected — before events occur. “In a sense, we learn from the past what to predict for the future and then live the future we expect”.
Two important key points here:
- Although our future is not decided, we tend to follow a certain script from past experiences for our future unconsciously. Therefore, if we’re not mindful to how we are thinking of our future, we perpetuate the same problems from our past.
- When we envision the desired future as if it’s happening right now, we are writing a new script for our brain to follow, tricking it to include the envisioned future into prediction. Then the brain will set in motion all our perceptions, emotions, and actions toward the envisioned future. Planning just ensues naturally in that direction.
How to Envision (ft. ChatGPT)
Envisioning is to imagine the most desired future and visualize it actively but most people find it so hard to do, because of their inner critic and very active planning mind. So I invite you to try it with ChatGPT, using the following prompt. Copy the prompt, write your inputs, paste/enter on ChatGPT, and see what happens!
“Everything in my life, starting from today, meets my most optimistic expectations. I am invited to give a talk (e.g. TED) about my work and my life. Write my speech including the following information:
Name:
Where I am now:
What I am feeling right now:
Who are with me right now:
What I have done so far:
What matters the most to me right now: “
