See what your life will be like in 15 years

Psychology and visualization of the future. One of the most amazing techniques we can use is visualizing the future. It is true that the future does not exist, it is a possibility and even a mystery. However, when we think about how our future will be, we change our current behavior, which, paradoxically, influences the destination we will arrive at.

The Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung wrote: “Finally, it is not only the past that conditions us, but also the future, which long before was already in us and slowly emerges from ourselves”.

The future under our control

A good part of the events that happen in our life are not under our control. Today, for me, it’s a sunny day, with few clouds, and it’s 22°. Just like the weather, many things we cannot change. I can’t change my height, nor my age. I cannot change what has passed, nor what another person has done or said to me.

Looking from this perspective, the picture looks bleak. However, many things are under our control. Although some thoughts arise in mysterious ways, agreeing with them or creating new, more positive thoughts is within our control. We have the capacity to change our way of seeing the world, ourselves, and we have the competence to transform our way of acting and behaving.

The short and long term

A while ago, I published a post about the main differences between the mindset of those who have a lot of money and those who just survive. One of the features was the long-term view.

For example, less than 10 years ago, land in the neighborhood where I live cost 5,000 reais. Today it does not cost less than 50 thousand reais. Looking at the short term, a decade ago, it might not have made sense to buy land here. Imagining how the scenario would be after a longer time, it was inevitable that, in a small town like São Lourenço, the price of real estate would appreciate.

Economists have a few definitions for the short, medium, and long term. Psychologically, each person has a perception of time according to their current age. For a 10 year old, 5 years is 50% of your life. For those who are 50 years old, 5 years is only 10%.

While time is relative in the psyche, it’s reasonable to think that some changes don’t happen overnight. There is no possibility of building a house in a single day. Bigger projects like building a career, a family, a social project, etc, don’t happen overnight either. They take time and usually need more than 5 years.

See what your life will be like in 15 years

To reflect on what your life will be like in 15 years, you need to think about what you want. Where and with whom do you want to be? Also, and most importantly, what have you been doing each day to get closer to where you want to be?

It’s totally natural to have doubts and sometimes not quite know what we want. However, thinking about the future is important because, as I said, it helps us to understand what we have been doing. If what we’ve been doing doesn’t bring us closer to what we want to achieve, then we need to change course.

A concrete example might help. If you eat poorly and are gaining weight, chances are that 15 years from now, your body weight – if you keep doing what you’re doing – will be higher and it will probably be harder to lose weight.

Now, if you change your daily eating habits, you will be following another path, maintaining or decreasing your weight; doing exercises, if that’s what you want, you will increase muscle mass and feel better and lighter, with less propensity to certain types of diseases.

a day in life

A day is just a day, we think. But added together, we create a future, desired or unwanted. Just as it is not possible to change the age we are today, there is no way to stop time.

For example, many people think that going to college will take a long time. 4, 5, 6 years. But, if we’re lucky enough to stay alive, 4, 5, 6 years will pass – whether you go to college or not. And then the question: in 4, 5, 6 years would you like to have gone to college? If you imagine yourself in that future, what would you like to have done? Would you like to have started now?

In the title I said 15 years, because 15 years is enough time to be living a completely different life, perhaps in another country, perhaps with another profession, perhaps with children or with another person by your side.

Conclusion

One of the texts I like the most is: If everything goes well, what will you be doing in 10 years? – because I like the wording of the question. But you have to go deeper than just thinking. Thinking about how you would like your life to be 10 or 15 years from now is not going to change your life. What will change will be:

• realizing that certain things you control and certain things you don’t;
• knowing what you can control (and what you might need help with here and there);
• answer, with daily actions, the question: “what are you doing today brings you closer to where you want to be tomorrow?”

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