CFC Blog #266: Picturing the Future

When I first started working for lululemon, I thought this whole “Goals setting + sharing” practice was novel, but wasn’t sure it was more than an icebreaker-y thing. But I tried it anyway. I wrote out a vision for 10-years in the future, and held myself to taking small steps forward on specific things. Over time, what first seemed big slowly became possible. After having kids, my future-vision shifted to picturing things for their sake, and left my personal path to be more hazy. As the pandemic precautions lighten up day by day, and with this nudge from reading Lauren’s piece, I’m inspired to dust off my vision-board and get back into my personal practice.

Today just so happens to be Lauren’s celebration of her incarnation. I’m so happy we could time this post of hers perfectly like this. Congratulations on your nativity, Lauren! (AKA Happy birthday!!)

- Corey

Picturing the Future

I was lucky enough to escape to my favorite place in New England for a few weeks in March. I didn’t take time off from work, but I still treated it as a bit of a retreat. After a bit of a crazy winter in the city, I took time to do the things that fill my cup - like trail running, biking, and taking long long walks on the beach with my family and our dog - I also intentionally carved out some time to think about my future. 

I’ve never been someone who could “picture” the future, like I feel like some people can. The pixels of what your life is like a year, 5 years, 10 years, 50 years down the road. My brain tends to work in concepts and feelings, not minute details and thinking many steps ahead. I hadn’t done an exercise like this since I graduated from college years ago now - I barely recognize the person I was then. It was time to revisit this exercise. 

Because I struggle to visualize, my first step was to brush the dust off of my very old, untouched Pinterest account and make a vision board. What did I want my life to look like in the short-term? The long-term? Some things were easy to put into an image - like my desire to have a house one day that accommodates serving big groups of friends through meals, or my dream of adopting a child someday. Others were not easy because they are more spatial - for example, how I would like to live close to the rest of my family, or the future of my career. I was able to see future possibilities come together. 

The next step: plan. What changes do I need to make in my life starting right now to make some of these dreams come true? Am I saving enough? Do I have people in my life who know about some of these goals and are supporting me down these paths? Can they hold me accountable? 

Since then, whenever I start feeling directionless, or I don’t see the point in doing some things, or I begin to just feel stressed by the weight of life, I pull up the Pinterest board on my phone to look at those photos - this is my way of “remembering my why,” I suppose. I remember what I am steering the ship towards, equally professionally and personally. And I remember something I heard a long time ago: if it won’t matter in 5 years, don’t spend more than 5 minutes worrying about it. There are many bigger and better things ahead.