Research suggests that some of us think of our future selves as strangers. This disconnection creates an “empathy Gap” with that “future stranger” that could influence our present decisions and our progress toward our personal goals.
This means that “present Pablo” wants to be fit someday, but today, he eats that KFC bucket and skips gym in part because of how his brain thinks of “future Pablo”: as a stranger! No empathy for the possibility of heart disease, dad body, or any negative outcomes.
All of this is fascinating to me, because if it happens to us at a personal level, how much difficult it could be for organizations to act consistently today with their aspirations and future goals?
In her TED talk “essential questions to ask your future self” Psychologist Meg Jay suggests one strategy to close that empathy gap for decisions, is to actively work on making that vision of our future as specific and detailed as possible and then ask the question “what can I do today to be kinder to that future version?”. Try to “get to know that future version of ourselves and reverse engineer our decisions towards that”.
Leaders can do this “vision exercise” as part of off-site or strategic engagements. I believe we did an excellent job of making what we want to be at Open LMS in what we call “Phill camp”, our strategy off-site. Now, as we navigate our path towards that vision we now have the commitment to continuously ask ourselves: What are we doing today to be kinder to future Open LMS? To be closer to our vision?
“Do we need this complex deal?”, “Should we really prioritize this investment?”, “Should we do this acquisition?”, “What is the most important thing we could be doing today?”. None of these have easy answers but they are questions worth asking.
In your case, what are you doing today to be kinder to your future self?
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
Pablo Borbón 