Drawing Your Future

“We’re visual animals, we have to see our goals to have the dopamine system work. This is why you have to write down your goals; we’re no good with the abstract” -Simon Sinek

This blog is based on the Ted Talk, Draw Your Future. This video, which you can and should watch by clicking on the link, introduces an ingenious and unique strategy to help you achieve your goals.

The first thing you need to ask yourself, is what is your goal? Whether it is overcoming addiction, climbing the Himalayas, or becoming a better parent, we all have things in our lives that we wished we were or were better at. So how do we reach our goals?

I know from personal experience that it is very easy to say, “Well, I don’t feel like reaching that goal today, so I’ll try tomorrow”. Or, “Well, I will never reach that goal, it’s just not who I am”. According to Patti Dobrowolski, the odds against you making a chance in your life is 9 to 1, even if you are facing a life-threatening illness.

To beat these odds, Patti recommends three things:

See it
Believe it
Act on it
So how do you see it? Through picture. You don’t have to have to know how to draw to make your own picture. But what you want to do is draw a picture of your current state and a picture of where you’d like to be.

For example you might draw an unhealthy romantic relationship, an addiction, a job you hate, or unhealthy foods on one side (current state) and draw your dream job, your desired romantic relationship, and healthy eating on the other side (Where I want to be). You get the most power when you draw your own picture. You need to fill your “Where I Want to be Picture” with color and emotion, so that you know how much it means to you and how excited you will be to get there. This is the “believe it” part.

After making these two pictures, you will need to close your eyes and think of the ways that you can get from your current state to your desired state. Write three bold steps that you can take down on the picture. Then act on these steps.

Put the picture up where you will see it everyday. One of the biggest advantages of having the picture is every time you get scared about taking the bold steps and you start to tell yourself that you are comfortable where you are, look at the picture and realize how much it really sucks to be in your current state and how much you really want to reach your goals.

If you are struggling to change your life and reach your goals, I would challenge you to draw your future. It won’t hurt anything, and as you’ve heard before “a picture is worth a thousand words.”