Visualize

Most people aren’t soothsayers. It can be downright impossible to project our minds forward in time in order to see a project in its completed state. Fortunately, we don’t have to be prognosticators in order to see the future – if we’re the ones creating it.

You’re visualized prediction is a target. A point in space and time that you’re going to use as a guiding light – your own personal North Star.

You don’t have to be perfect, but the more you can truly visualize that end, the more driven you will become to achieve it. So how do we sharpen our future sight?

We add context.

Most people have difficulty visualizing a completed project because completed projects don’t exist in featureless white vacuums. They’re successful because of what they do, how they allow you to interact with the world. So forget about the project for a moment, and let’s visualize that context.

Imagine a person thanking you for your work. Make it someone you know. What are they saying? Write down a few notes about the kinds of feedback you’d like to receive.

Imagine other projects you can do after this one. Why are you better prepared to launch into those things now that you’ve completed this one? Write down a few notes about what could happen next.

Imagine you’re mentoring someone in the future because they want to engage with a similar project of their own, and they want to benefit from your experience. What would you be able to tell them? What skills could you transfer? Write down a few notes about how you want to develop personally.

Now take all of those notes and construct a narrative. Tell the story of how you’re complimented and thanked for your work, how you share it with others, and what you start to do next. The biggest gap in this story will be the project itself, but that gap will be so much easier to fill in once you’re excited about everything else.

Now you can see the space you’re aiming for. With every step, you’ll get closer.