The Future Story of the Current Setback
Ever since I watched Graham Weaver talk about “writing stories” I’ve been hooked.
Any time I’ve written out a long-form story about a future version of myself I’ve gotten a tidal wave of clarity.
There are three key rules for these stories:
They take place at some point in the future (ideally more than 6 months from today)
They describe a wildly successful scenario
They don’t care about the “how”
This exercise shakes our brains from their normal rut.
Our brains are hardwired to focus on the floor falling out beneath us. Our antennae are constantly up, tuned for risks and problems we can avoid or solve. This is why problem language works so well as a marketing technique:
But, this hurts our North Star thinking. We won’t naturally think about our ceiling — what our best case scenario might be — because we're so focused on the floor. That means we never build in the daily systems and practices to reach it.
Writing your story pulls you out of problem thinking.
A great opportunity for this is after a setback.
I tore my Achilles in late January, had surgery, went through the recovery, and now — nearly 7 months out — I’m…not better. I was supposed to be. But it seems like the surgeon accidentally sliced a few nerves, which is making it tough to heal. It’s a pain, and it’s frustrating.
So, I did a 40-minute story session writing about my future success, specifically how I’ll overcome the foot setback.
When I zoomed forward to the moment when my foot would be healed, when I was back running marathons and running around the back yard with Ruby, I said things like, “I woke up early every morning to do the nerve exercises — they are boring and repetitive, so I spent time finding addictive true crime podcasts and listened to them only while exercising,” and “Every time I watched TV at night, I did it with the foam roller and lacrosse ball, working out the scar tissue.”
Then, I made sure those things happened.
Tell the story from a future perspective — the wildly successful scenario — then inspect that story and build a system to make sure it happens.
Spend 40 minutes today — write out, long-form, your wildly successful state. It's worth it.