Refocused Living

The entire thought process behind setting goals starts with the underlying assumption that your present state in the world isn’t good enough as you want it to be. You want more deeply fulfilling relationships with your friends and family, you want to make more passive income, you want to travel the world and experience different cultures. This is what leads people to cheat on their significant other, start brand new blogs, and backpack through Europe on barely a shoestring budget.

Our human ability to imagine a better future for ourselves and translate our vision into words is something most people take for granted. As a result, most people don’t bother setting goals – they have a general idea of where they’re headed and where they want to go, which is good enough for them. And that’s totally okay! You don’t need clearly defined goals to have a sense of direction in your life. (This also includes people who set goals in only a specific area in their life and let all of the other facets slide – e.g., the manager who only sets goals to meet certain monthly quotas in her business.)

In Philip Zimbardo’s awesome book, The Time Paradox (opens in a new window), he explains there are several perspectives human beings look at time through: the past, the present, and the future. The past perspective is concerned with past events and how we relate to and think about them; the present perspective is concerned with how we’re going to find immediate happiness in our lives; the future perspective is concerned with what actions we can take right now to achieve our future goals. While the three time-frame labels aren’t exactly breathtakingly new, the unique twist on looking at the time-frames makes the book incredibly worthwhile to read.

I’ve read parts of it, and already it’s changed my views on thinking of my personal goals and my limited time. In this blog post, I want to share two mindsets with you that he talks about in the book – the “present-minded mindset” and the “future-minded mindset.” Both are ways of living and analyzing time management with. Utilizing both of their unique benefits in your life can make your life a more richer, rewarding experience.

The Present-Minded Mindset

The present-minded mindset is being totally focused on the present moment, with no regard for how your decisions will affect your future at all. Generally this means being focused on what can make you pleasured and happy immediately, without looking at the long term consequences of your actions.

Smoking is an example of a present-minded action. So is eating that double quarter pounder with cheese you just ordered from McDonald’s because you’re a bit hungry and need some fuel. Drinking copious amounts of alcohol, gambling, and whittling away your time at video games are all activities that make you happy solely in the present. These choices lead to future consequences down the road – lung cancer, a failed liver, a highly developed character in a video game – but your focus isn’t on the future. It’s completely on the here and now. What can you do right now to give yourself a little thrill?

You see this mindset with teenagers and young adults. Do you have a one night stand to make you satisfied, or do you wait it out just a bit longer to find somebody you’re more comfortable with? Risk vs. reward thinking is subtle here – you may know promiscuous sex can lead to unwanted pregnancies and STDs, but that’s not what’s on your mind. Your mind is set on what the immediate rewards are, so why dilute that with thinking about future consequences? The rewards you’d get from having sexual activity right now is far greater than analyzing the pros and cons in your mind.

The Future-Minded Mindset

The future-minded mindset is being totally focused on the future, with all of your current actions stemming from a desire to want to build a better future for yourself or others.

Why do high achievers always achieve so highly and make the rest of the population scratch their heads in awe and wonder? It’s not because they’re that different than you – it’s because they’re solely focused on the future. They have specific goals that they must accomplish at all costs, and they eschew everything that doesn’t lead directly to their desired results.

Future-minded people have no will to engage in pleasurable activities that only benefit them in the now. Choosing between watching a half hour TV show and reading a book about their desired work field, they’ll always choose the book. Distractions need to be dealt with and removed ASAP; what matters most is getting results. Anything else isn’t worth the battle.

Delaying gratification whenever the future rewards outweigh the immediate benefits is something future oriented people are masters at. If I told you that I would give you either $50 today or in two months I’d give you $100, would you choose the former or the latter? Future-minded people would immediately choose the latter. To them, the choice is simple – there’s a bigger reward to be had in the future if short term happiness is skipped.

Combining the Two Mindsets for Amazing Goal Achievement

When people set goals, it’s rarely in a present-minded mindset. Goals start out with a future-minded thought, e.g., “I wish I made more money!” Then they turn into some kind of  more specific statement, “I will make $3,000 a year completely through my personal development blog.” It’s only then do we turn our goals into a present-minded version, “I make $3,000 a year completely through my personal development blog.”

Writing out your goals completely in the present seems like a fabulous idea on the surface – if I can imagine my goals are real right now, that would make me want to act in congruent with those goals. If I feel like I’m already making $3,000 a month through my blog, I might be more apt to continuously deliver actions that really do get me those results; I’d create an awesome self-fulfilling prophecy for myself. But is a present-minded model of goal setting really worth it in the end? It’s both yes and no. If present-minded written goals conjure up thoughts of immediate happiness and instant gratification, then they can be pretty effective. Otherwise, I would personally would stick to future-minded goal setting.

It’s important to have a razor sharp focus on the future to know specifically where you are headed in all areas of your life, but it’s also equally important to enjoy your present moment as much as possible.

Present moments allow you to have immediate fun; future-minded thinking allows you to gaze into the future and allocate your time to goal achievement. Living solely in the distant future can drain your happiness bit by bit because you don’t feel as happy as you should; living without a regard for tomorrow can make your life miserable in the future. Becoming so obsessed with the risks in life can lead you not take calculated risks that could end up being major rewards.

Where do you fall in the grand scheme of things? Do you focus more on the present, skipping out on your long term goals to have fun right here, right now? Or is your focus more skewed towards the future, missing out on fun right now for a better life someday? Focusing on the future but also having fun in the present is the way to go – but you can’t go wrong consciously choosing the way to spend your time, every day.

Brainstorming has always been one of my strong points – something I’ve always been exceptionally great at. Since people are always looking for ways to brainstorm easier/better/more productive, I decided to share what works for me with you. Rather than describe ways to create a better quality brainstorm – that’s for another post! – I want to share with you five ways that I’ve found to make brainstorming easier. As a result, I now look at brainstorming as a more enjoyable process, even though I love it already!

1. Move around!

Closed positions = a closed mind. Open positions = an open mind.

When you imagine a person deep in brainstorming, you often think of somebody sitting on a couch, notebook in one hand and pencil in the other, blankly staring off into space. Maybe you imagined yourself in that same position! That is the worst positions your body can be in while you’re striving to be creative.

A closed position leads to a closed mind. If you’re sitting in a position that’s painful, often times you’ll become hurt and impatient. Impatience leads to thinking “Why am I doing this?”, which leads to procrastination and unproductive brainstorming. If you’re leisurely lounging on your couch, you start to feel tired and bored; this too leads to disastrous ends results.  If you’re having trouble creating new ideas, try standing up. Move around the room – imagine you’re talking to a classroom full of students, and you have to come up with an interesting presentation about your current ideas. Pace briskly around the room, use hand motions as you’re thinking, look excited and enthralled! Nobody is watching you, so put on your acting face!

Think of how you act when you chat on the phone to your best friend, telling them something exciting that’s just happened in your life. You appear thrilled and glowing, you begin to use extravagant hand motions to emphasize your thoughts. You giggle, smile, and literally act like the person is standing right across from you. Even though you can’t physically see your friend, your actions show that your mind is actively working to retrieve the memories you’re trying to relay to them. Try to jump-start your brain by physically getting excited if you’re having trouble brainstorming.

2. Think to yourself out loud.

When we’re actively engaging in brainstorming, it’s easy to only write down our ideas without questioning how that idea came to be. As a result, after the first few ideas we begin to think in a closed-minded pattern – this can lead many people to encounter a form of writer’s block. Obviously this can’t be a good thing – for example, if you’re striving for 50 ways to create passive income on your blog and you can only think of 10 ways, you’re coming up just a bit short.

Thinking out loud helps break those closed-minded patterns. Instead of creating ideas out of thin air solely in your mind, you’re forcing yourself to justify your own reasons to yourself. Doing this allows you to make new connections with old and new concepts, which then leads to a richer, more productive brainstorming session.

3. Hold an object in your hand.

Have you ever played with a Rubik’s cube before? Most people have! They’re a bit addicting, aren’t they? You begin to shuffle around the colors, trying your hardest to solve the puzzle. After a while your mind begins to wander and think of what’s for dinner, what you’re doing tomorrow night… and the problem you’ve been having at work.

Human beings are very tactile-oriented creatures. We love to play with things – even as kids we often played around with creative, colorful toys, touching everything and getting a sense of the world around us. As adults we tried to put this part of us back into a box, and unfortunately our creativity also was stored away. Next time you’re having difficulty brainstorming, try playing with something in your hands as you think: a squishy stress ball, a mechanical pencil, a metal chain. It might be enough to stimulate your imagination.

4. Get a friend to objectively question your thought patterns.

Even after brainstorming out loud, sometimes we still can’t smash our thought patterns. Asking somebody else to objectively look at your brainstormed list and ask you how you created your ideas will force you to justify your reasons to them. Once you begin to see an underlying pattern, you can then inject a bit of reasoning and emotion into your thoughts and come up with new, brilliant solutions to your problems.

For example, suppose you’re coming up with new ideas on how to decorate your front lawn, but all of your landscaping ideas include adding in more flowers. You don’t see this blind spot – flower adder! – because you’re too entrenched in the belief that to have a decorated lawn, you must add flowers. Asking your best friend to look over your answers and ask, “Why does every idea include flowers? This is ridiculous!” can lead to a better brainstorming run.

5. Start brainstorming a completely different problem.

“Brainstorming block” is identical to writer’s block. It’s annoying and hardly fun to strive to create new ideas and not be able to come up with anything.  Sometimes the best way to become a better brainstormer is to simply try brainstorming solutions to a brand new problem. Doing this allows you to start making new connections with a totally different concepts. Those connections may allow you to better brainstorm on your original problem.

What are your personal suggestions?

Brainstorming, to me, is all about creating new, creative connections with concepts and ideas you already know. What methods do you use to make brainstorming more productive and easier? Don’t be shy – share them in the comments. Let’s help each other become even better at this valuable skill.