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The Creation of the Future Self: Strategic Life
Planning is one of
Feroce's most powerful tools of personal discovery -- of your and
your coach's discovery of who you really are. It is of
great power for clients seeking direction, or to know and
prioritize what matters to them. It's of special
interest to career-changers and clients trying to decide on
a business to start or whether to maintain a relationship.
Please note that clients retain the choice of whether to
utilize the book, and, after discussion with their coach,
even to decide which chapters are of most relevance to them. Rather
than paraphrase the contents, we offer below some excerpts
and the Table of Contents.
Excerpts from Chapter 1 and Introduction to the Handbook
Chapter One -- Introduction and Initial Vision (download
v1.8)
Chapter Two --
Cleaning House and Letting Go (download
v1.2)
Chapter
Three --
Budget and Obstacles
Chapter
Four -- Money, Security, Things
Chapter Five
-- Doing and Doing Well
Chapter Six --
Values Assessments and Career Testing
Chapter X -- The Creation of the Future Self: How
Modern Science and Ancient Wisdom Traditions Agree on
Creating Success
Excerpts from Chapter 1, and Introduction to the Handbook
In Tsarist Russia, a priest walks
down a country road.
Suddenly a soldier confronts him. The soldier aims his
rifle at the priest. The soldier shouts, “Who are you? Where
are you going? Why are you going there?”
The priest has stopped. He studies the soldier. “How
much do they pay you?” he asks.
The soldier, perplexed, lowers his weapon. “Twenty-five
kopecks a month,” he says.
The priest thinks for a moment and then nods. “I have a
proposition for you. I’ll pay you fifty kopecks a month if
you’ll stop me here every day and ask me those same three
questions.”
You, the client, are the priest.
Your coach is the soldier. Let’s go.
* * *
Short of attaining spiritual enlightenment, there is no end
to the process of continually arriving at a new and more
accurate awareness of who, what, even when you are.
But the farther you are from starting down a path of
ever-increasing awareness, the more likely you are to be
unhappy in what are mostly unconsciously chosen careers,
relationships, and, last but not least, voids where you
would like relationships to be.
Similarly, if you lack a real awareness of your true values
and drives, you could also be inclined to start sabotaging
jobs or relationships that might otherwise be right for you.
While it’s far less common, it is possible, in theory, to
leave a career prematurely because of unexamined emotional
conflicts and untested assumptions. It may also be
possible, and probably more common, to leave a relationship
prematurely.
Regardless of the likelihood of your actually leaving too
early, you surely want badly not to make such a mistake and
not to suffer the sting of future regret. So you
probably want to consider the matter as soberly and with as
much reflection as possible. Whether it’s a job or
career, you may reasonably have decided that it’s best to
build a secure emotional foundation in order to make the
most informed, least reactive, choice possible. You
may have concluded that the best path to authentically good
decisions in life is to be, first, authentic.
In this Handbook, you will define many of your ultimate
goals (or near-ultimate, given that you are unlikely to set
goals for that greatest of trips, the one few of us ever
prepare for). You will also set out many of the steps
that you think will, if completed, help you to reach those
goals. (You won’t often be right, but you can try.)
Before you can know where you want to go, you will need to
decide what matters to you.
Chapter One -- Introduction and Initial Vision
So we will start in this Chapter One by looking at
your values and vision for the future as of today,
including, critically, any steps you are already taking (or
not taking at all) that are in alignment with your values
and goals. We’ll do this to get you thinking about
your future, because common sense, scientific research, and
the anecdotal claims of successful people all tell us that
some future orientation is a necessary step toward
successfully bettering that future. Your vision will
also give your coach some very useful information about
where you’re going. (And later, we’ll also be able to
see how your thinking about your life purpose has evolved.)
You’ll talk about what a life purpose means to you, who you
know who has one, and you’ll even take a preliminary guess
at what yours might be.
Introduction 2
What You Can Expect From This Handbook – Some Journey, Some
Destination, Not Both at Once 9
A Harmless Explanatory Note for Clients Seeking Career or
Relationship Coaching 11
A Brief Detour Through Personality Types and Profiles 13
The Bracing Value of Pain in Overcoming the Powerful Fear of
Change 14
Accountability, or, Readiness for Change 17
How This Handbook Works and How It Compares to Self-Help
Books 21
12 Unoriginal Axioms for Living 26
Initial Vision 28
Inventory of the Status Quo 28
Exercise: Vision for a Child 29
Exercise: Vision for Yourself 29
Exercise: Back to Your Life Purpose 30
Chapter Two, Cleaning House and Letting Go
In Chapter Two, “Cleaning House and Letting Go,”
you’ll start to clear out some of the things that hold you
back, from that messy car and desk to the loose ends in your
relationships. You can expect an infusion of new energy into
your life when you engage in some of this personal Feng Shui
. . .
Clutter is nothing less than a collection of postponed
decisions to act. That is, physical clutter is symbolic of
inner disorder, avoidance, even laziness. Why, just look at
my desk: a check I intended to cash. Two business cards I
intended to use to write emails. A manuscript I intended to
edit. Pages from a print-out that I intended to group with
the rest of the pages printed earlier. A list of goals that
I intended to revise before placing on postcards for
twice-daily review
Chapter Three: Budget and Obstacles
In Chapter Three , we’ll look at your budget to test
some of your assumptions about how that vision and life
purpose can be reached, and you’ll set out any other
obstacles that stand between you and your preferred vision
of your future self. That is, which of your stated
values are you not honoring?
Exercise: Identifying Limitations and Hurdles 1
The Anchors Beneath Your Sailboat 3
Exercise: Anticipate Anchors and Be Better Prepared for
Temporary Squalls 7
Exercise: Comfort Zone – How Much Money Do You Really Need?
8
Chapter
Four: Money, Security, Things
In Chapter Four , we’ll look at how money and
security have influenced you – particularly other people’s
ideas and values and anxieties about money and security –
and we’ll try to parse out the influences that are outside
of you and can lead you astray (and probably already have).
Closure on Your Vision for a Child 1
Old Eyes 1
In the Beginning: Personal Archeology – Get at the Past that
Made the Now 3
Exercise: Photographic Anthropology: Relationship to Others,
Things, and Security 4
Chapter Five: Doing and Doing Well
In Chapter Five , you’ll revisit your relationship
between doing and feeling – and particularly doing well and
feeling good about yourself. This chapter isn’t just for the
over-achievers! Using examples of what you have done in the
past that has given you joy and fulfillment – that is your
values in action.
Exercise: Relationship to Doing and Doing Well 2
Exercise: Transferable Skills and Old Loves. Or, “Finally,
You Can Bring Up Things You Did Well” 4
Exercise: Clues Buried in the Past 8
Chapter Six
-- Values Assessments and Testing
This is what you look for when you see a career counselor or
use the outplacement services of a large company:
testing and assessment to determine what matters to you at
work, your preferred work style and environment, what skills
you like most to use, and much more.
Chapter X -- The Creation of the Future Self: How
Modern Science and Ancient Wisdom Traditions Agree on
Creating Success
And then, in Chapter X, “The Creation of the Future
Self,” we’ll revisit your initial vision, revise it
according to what you’ve learned, and use the best of modern
goal-setting art and science to identify, set, and start you
on the road to achieving your goals. You too can
leverage the most effective techniques used by top athletes,
entrepreneurs, businesspeople, and other very successful
people. We’ve collected them in one place, and we’ll start
working them in a few weeks. This is the most exciting
chapter of all!
The Creation of Self 4
Intentional Change 11
The Creation of the Future Self 14
Future Self Best Practice #1: Create SMART Goals 16
Future Self Best Practice #2: Choose Quantum Goals and
Identify a Few Key Breakthrough Goals 20
Future Self Best Practice #3: Write Goals Down 21
Future Self Best Practice #4: State Goals in the Affirmative
23
Future Self Best Practice #5: Dramatize Goals As if They
Have Already Happened 23
Future Self Best Practice #6: Share Your Goals! 25
Revision – Or The Revising of Your Initial Vision 26
Future Self Best Practice #7: Reverse-Engineer Your
Strategic Goals Until You Know Your Week-by-Week Tactics 27
Future Self Best Practice #8: Get Your Tactical Action Items
Into Your Calendar 28
Future Self Best Practice #9: Visualize Your Goals At Least
Twice a Day for 30 Days 28
Future Self Best Practice #10: Cut Back on the Negative 35
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