Next time you reach an impasse during a planning / brainstorming session, or while helping a friend or client get out of a rut, try these simple steps to achieve Virtual Hindsight™.
The following model succeeds by focusing on success as a “future state,” and describing it in detail. Your future state can be awesome, but remember, it has to be reasonable! Once you set this waypoint, it’s easy to “look back” and determine what steps had to be taken to achieve the desired state or goal:
- Gain commitment to solving the problem: “Everyone wants this to get better, right?”
- **Assume Success, Speak it, Write it and Believe it: Speak in positive, present tense terms about the future state you want to reach. “I’m only working 30 hours a week” works better than, “I’m working less.”
- Solidify and Quantify: “How much better off are you today?”
- Look Back at What Got You Here and Express Gratitude: “What obstacles did you have to overcome to get here and who helped?”
- Fine Tune (bonus): “What would you do differently if you started today?”
If your process is successful, you’ll free your client, friend, spouse, or business partner. Once they gain clarity about the stressful, problem-focused world they’re living in, they will realize that multiple solutions exist for their problems. Virtual Hindsight ™ will help them get out of the muck and gain new perspective.
In cases of overwhelming success, step four will lead to the subjects offering multiple plans of attack. Once you have commitment to assume success, suddenly the most analytic critic can become the life of the party. The very same characteristics that make him or her a general liability in most future-focused planning meetings will come to life as a tremendous asset.
If it fails, (usually because of an unwilling participant) then you’ll know who not to invite to the next brainstorming session.
**Without Virtual Hindsight™, a problem-focused individual or group will have a hard time seeing their future clear of the obstacles that come up during the planning process. Practice using this process whenever it seems natural, and in combination with other problem-solving stories and drawings.
As an advisor, coach and local leader, Jeremy Overton has spent the last 12 years educating and motivating individuals, families, and business owners who are interested in having a greater impact on their communities, the people they love, and the causes they support. You can connect with him on: Google+