Motivation Exercise: Look Back From the Future

Purpose

Being a good person or a leader requires a good vision, persistence, definite plans and an ability to reflect on your current state so you can see what you need to do next to get there. This exercise helps delegates to think about themselves from a point of view placed in the future so they can better see what they want to get and if they are going in a wrong direction.

Objective

Answer the questions on your current state or future state from a point of view in the future.

What You Need

A copy of “Look Back From Future Form” for each delegate.

Setup

• Distribute the “Look Back From Future Form” to all delegates.
• Discuss the importance of reflection, self-analysis and mission statements to delegates. Explain that much like solving mazes, to solve the maze of life you have to start from the end and work backwards to where you are now. This way you can clearly see whether what you are doing is getting you closer to your final objective and what you need to do to get there. It allows you to see a series of steps you need to take at each specific time to get to your final destination. It also makes you feel more confident that getting to your objective is not that hard as you might have thought before.
• Ask delegates to use the form and answer the questions.
• Allocate 15 to 30 minutes for this part.
• Get everyone back together and ask them to share their thoughts. Naturally, they don’t have to share anything they don’t want to, though it can be quite inspiring to hear about other people’s ambitions in life and how they see their progress.
• Follow with a discussion.

Timing

Explaining the Exercise: 5 minutes

Activity: 15 to 30 minutes

Group Feedback: 15 minutes

Discussion

Having gone through the questions, what do you think about your life? Do you have a clear mission statement and goals? Do you have a good answer to give to your grandchild? What do you think of other people’s ambitions? How useful is this exercise? Is it valuable to repeat this exercise in the future so you can constantly see where you are going and what you want to be?

Looking Back From Future Form

1. Imagine that you are 90 years old and you want to explain to your grandchild what you have achieved in life. What would you say?

2. Imagine that you are 90 years old and are reflecting back at life. What regrets do you think you would have and how strongly do you think you would think about them?

3. Suppose someone decided to write a biography on your life and place it in a Wikipedia page about you. Suppose your life should be described in about 4 paragraphs as a summary appearing at the top of the page. What do you like these 4 paragraphs to be?

4. Imagine that somehow you would be given one chance to change something in your life. What would that be? How do you think you can get this change in your life?

5. If he/she had/was __________________, he/she would have been perfect.

a. If this sentence was written about you, what do you think people put in the empty area?

b. If this sentence was written about you, what do you like people to put in the empty area?

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