Your Own Personal Christmas Carol ...Who Will You Be In 10 Years?

Every year I do an exercise.  I look and see who I will be in 10 years.

I take an hour or so with my journal and I sit quietly and I picture myself in 10 years.  I picture myself with my kids, with my husband, going to work, etc.  I observe how I look and what feelings I get and how others are relating to me.

Sometimes I just observe.  Sometimes I write in my journal.  Sometimes I just scribble down a few notes.  Sometimes it is a struggle and everything looks fuzzy.  And sometimes it is like watching a movie from the front row.

Do I like where I am headed or not?  Are these things I want to embrace ans strive towards or are there things I want to change?  I guess it is sort of my own personal Christmas Carol.

I take what I have learned and I set some goals for the year.

I have to share that I did this exercise this morning and was sort of surprised with what I saw.  You see, last year what I saw was absolutely amazing!  My visions of myself in my career really encouraged me to do some great things over this past year that I might have otherwise thought were not important.  But this year,  I didn't like where I was headed with my kids.  I can see that some of the choices I am making with them now is sending me on a path that lacks a real connection to them.  This is my opportunity to make some changes.

YOUR TURN
Schedule some time for yourself now and again each year to practice this exercise.  (Doing the exercise is actually a repeating event in my Google calendar so I don't forget!)

Find a quite place where you won't be disturbed and bring along a journal or notepad.

Close your eyes and thing about one of your current relationships or roles and ask yourself what it looks like in 10 years.  Then just go from there.  You might be able to just follow along or you might need to guide yourself to other relationships and roles.  You might just get a quick flash of something or you might see a whole scene playing out.

Record things as you wish and when you are done, take note of what you seem to have learned and act on that information as it feels right.

Good luck!