It’s so easy for our goals to feel like vague dreamy ambitions. Even the word “goals” for many people feels synonymous with dreams and hopes. The problem is that it’s hard to get motivated and stay committed to something that feels so unclear and amorphous.
That’s why I started letting go of the language of goals, and last year I created a video called Throw Out Your SMART Goals. Now, the research shows that having clear, written outcomes that you are working toward improves your chances of achieving them. So, I’m not suggesting that you throw out having specific outcomes you’re focused on.
I just think that it’s time for the concept of “goals” to receive an upgrade. So, what if instead you define your Vivid Future Accomplishments (VFAs). The term “Future Accomplishment” brings with it a sense of clear commitment. It’s something that you have committed to accomplishing in your life come hell or high water (as they say.) Goals are things that we sometimes “fail” to reach, while “Future Accomplishments” removes all space for failure because we are committed to success and accomplishing our outcome no matter the time, effort, or resources needed.
How do we bring that level of commitment and fervor to our Future Accomplishments? We make them VIVID! We put flesh on the experience, and we create that accomplishment as a reality before we’ve yet achieved it. Let me teach you how…
Step into Your Success
The key is visualization and imagination. What is a Future Accomplishment that you deeply want to achieve? Could be personal or professional: running a marathon, visiting Italy, speaking on a TEDx stage, publishing a book? Pick one specific outcome you are deeply called and committed to achieve in your life. (You can repeat it with others later.)
Next close your eyes and step into the moment when you’ve achieved that outcome. You’re holding your new book. You’re speaking eloquently on the stage. You’re strolling along the Grand Canal in Venice. You’re crossing the marathon finish line.
Step fully into that moment as if it were happening right now. How do you feel? What do you see? What do you hear? How are you breathing? Notice everything. Then, make it even brighter, crisper, clearer. Turn everything up. Feel it even more deeply. Hear everything even more clearly. Soak in the experience.
Often our “goals” feel heady and vague. However, when we complete this process of making our Future Accomplishments vivid we are allowing the experience to come to life and creating an almost magnetic force within our soul that starts pulling us toward their achievement. Creating this lived experience of the achievement of our Future Accomplishment is the first step in making it vivid, but we can take it even further.
Future Pace Your Accomplishments
What if we use our envisioning process by not only stepping into the moment of achievement, but stepping beyond that moment to notice the difference that this accomplishment can make in our future lives. So, after soaking in the experience of achieving your VFA, float up out of that moment and see your personal timeline below you with that achievement directly beneath you and the past stretching out one way and the future stretching the other.
Float forward a few weeks past your accomplishment, and float down into a specific event a few weeks after your accomplishment has been achieved. Notice what’s different? What are you seeing, hearing, feeling? Having that accomplishment achieved… what’s different in yourself, in your life?
When you’ve soaked that in, float up and repeat with another specific time a few months later beyond your accomplishment, notice what’s different. How have you changed? What’s different about your life?
Repeat one last time with an event a year or more beyond the accomplishment. Step into that moment, open your eyes, and notice what’s different. What impact did that achievement have on who you are and how you’re showing up in the world at this point a whole year later.
I have found that there’s a magic to this future pacing process particularly when applied to our Vivid Future Accomplishments (VFAs) because it crystalizes not only the experience itself but the impact that achieving that outcome will have on your life.
When you’ve visit these three additional moments in the future, float back to the moment of now, integrating all these new awarenesses of your future into your being and feel yourself become fully present here and now. Take a couple deep breaths before you open your eyes.
Making Your Vivid Future Accomplishment a Practice
Having this experience once can ignite a fire in your heart that no amount of intellectual goal setting will likely spark. However, if you truly want to fan the flames, then you can turn this process into a regular practice. What if once a week at the beginning of your weekly review time you repeated this process of stepping into the moment of your VFA and future pacing its achievement?
You may notice different things each time. You can amplify and increase the vibrancy of everything you see, hear, and feel to help increase the magnetic pull of this outcome in your life. You can even get curious about the road up to the event and perhaps notice if there are any additional resources or people who might be able to help you achieve your outcome more easily or effectively.
If you find yourself at a point where you’re feeling stuck, then you could visit your future self who’s already achieved the outcome and ask that self for guidance about how you can move forward or what could help you. They are the Genius version of your self that’s already achieved your outcome after all. You might be surprised at the solutions he or she suggests.
Regardless, the more you build your connection to and experience of your VFA the more you increase your likelihood of accomplishing it and amplify your motivation to work continuously towards it. Your VFA becomes more than just something you thought once that you might like to do, but a living “Future Accomplishment” that drives your thinking and decision-making each week or even each day.
Practicing your VFA turns on your internal radar to be sensitive to how you can accomplish your outcome, which will make you more aware of new opportunities that could shorten the road and bring that future closer to now.
Next Actions
Is giving up the term “goals” and talking about VFAs just semantics? Maybe, but language has power, and if you have any hesitation or doubt surrounding those “goals,” then you might end up self-sabotaging their achievement.
Perhaps this language shift can give you a clear reboot that allows you to recommit and reconnect with the Vivid Future Accomplishments that are calling you forward. Certainly, practicing their accomplishment with this level of vivid reality will change your relationship to them permanently and make accomplishing them feel more compelling and real.
So, choose your first Vivid Future Accomplishment and give this new practice a shot. You might be surprised what you experience!
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©Michael Bednarek / Stockfresh
