About Desired Futures
Are you actively working to create the future you want?
Do you have a written life plan including your goals for this year and actions for this quarter?
Very few do. In fact I often open my workshops on Desired Futures for Individuals, Couple or Teams with this question and rarely does anyone have a written plan and I have never had more than two in the same session.
Does your company have a widely understood vision and strategy document that drives day to day activity?
One again most don’t. Many businesses have business plans but nowhere near as many as you might think. Even fewer have a vision and plan that guides daily action.
What tends to happen is:
- The boss understands the plan but others don’t;
- The boss loses sight of the plan and does not use it to guide day to day activity;
- Whether it be for their personal life or business life many people don’t make time to think and plan;
- The concept of vision has bad reputation due to poor leadership and being misused by so many people;
- Bringing a vision to life and creating a desired future is hard work and does not happen quickly so people see it as a wasted effort;
- Relationships suffer, conflict and disappointment abound and people have different expectations which can’t possibly be met.
The consequences
When it comes to vision and creating desired futures there are many similarities between what happens in our private and professional lives. Some of these include:
- When we are clear on the future we want to create we see the opportunities to make it happen:
- When we don’t have a picture of the future we desired we simply don’t know what to look for;
- When unclear of our desired future we make errors, mistakes and waste time;
- Without a desired future we lack of foresight and the clarity to focus on what matters to us;
- We lack commitment to what we are doing and to our teams and relationships as we are not connected to the desired future;
- We don’t know where to allocate our time and effort so we end up doing the wrong thing or working on what does not matter;
- Working on the same problem over and over is another outcome of not having a vision of the future you desire.
A lack of clarity of your desired future leads to poor performance for both individuals, teams and organisations. Conflict and dissatisfaction occurs in relationships and they fall apart. From a business perspective people like to feel part of doing and creating something worthwhile so without a clear desired future people leave.
Why having a desired future is important
Clarity of the future you are trying to create is the most powerful vehicle for achieving success in everything you do as it leads to:
- Short and long term success through better performance and resource allocation;
- Personal and professional achievement;
- Better relationships, teams, organisations and communities;
- People contributing more and tackling change with a positive attitude;
- Greater commitment, productivity and staff retention;
- Strategy quality and execution improves;
- Less mistakes and more possibilities taken advantage of;
- Positive motivation for constant learning and improvement; and,
- Personal satisfaction from success and feeling you are creating the future you want.
How do you create desired futures
Creating the future you desire for your life, your relationships, your teams and your organisations is an ongoing process and with each cycle you develop more clarity, stretch a bit further and explore new horizons. At the heart of creating your desired future is clarity about where to, where from and how to get there.
The following seven steps provide an overview of what is required:
- Adopt a Desired Futures approach – what will you include?
- Adopt team model and behaviours or personal behaviours if an individual to guide your day to day action and strategy;
- Determine or clarify the desired future you want to create;
- Establish and share your current reality as you need to know where you are today;
- Develop strategy, action and the required skills to shift from today to your desired future;
- Cascade strategy and action to individuals (or to individual strategies if working on your personal desired future)
- Review, learn and keep using the model until it becomes a way of life.
