Latest / Real STRength with Sarah Draper / Vision Your Future in 30 Minutes | #4
Transcript
- Sarah Draper: You're literally moving in the same direction. Physically, you're both looking ahead. What am I doing now that doesn't serve the person I want to become? There's some real evidential proof about what walking is doing in your brain. One day, you look up and you wonder, how did I get here? Is this what I wanted? Your mind begins to wander in a productive way. And this is when these creative insights start to emerge. Welcome to the Future Walk podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Draper. Each week on the podcast, I explore tools to help you lead your best now and into the future. And I talk with top leaders to see how they stay focused when life gets cluttered. It's time to stop reacting to your life and start leading it. Welcome to Future Walk. Welcome to the Future Walk podcast. I'm Sarah Draper and I'm so glad you're here. And if you're new to the Future Walk podcast and especially warm welcome. A little about me as we begin. I spent three decades in the army and the FBI leading national security programs running high stakes operations. What I learned is that all leaders, even the very best ones face three consistent challenges. Making complex decisions under pressure. seeing their own blind spots and helping the people they lead perform at their best. That's why I created the Future Walk, a simple practice for better decisions, clearer thinking and more effective leadership and a way to live the life you're working for, which is exactly what the Visioning Future Walk creates. And today that's what we are diving into, the Visioning Future Walk. the longest and most powerful of the three types. This 30 to 50 minute walk or longer is focused on three to five years from now and it's your antidote to drift. Drift is what happens when you lose sight of your long-term why in your purpose. You're so busy responding and doing, helping everyone else, you're working hard, you're getting things done, but one day, You look up and you wonder, how did I get here? Is this what I wanted? Or maybe you've lost connection to what you used to enjoy or the people who were once such a vital part of your life. Or you keep misstepping on your goals. So you set a goal, but try to use your grit and discipline to get you there. But find those wear out after a short time. And you find yourself reverting to your old patterns, the ones you so desperately want to change. The visioning future work helps you create or reconnect to a long-term vision. So you're not just busy, you're building towards what matters most for you and your future. I'll walk you through today some of the science behind why this works, then show you three ways to use it. Either solo for personal or professional direction, with a coach or mentor when you need an outside perspective or structure. and with a spouse or a life partner to build a shared vision for your life together. And by the end of this episode, you'll know exactly how to use a visioning future walk to design a future you're excited about and proud to live. So as a quick overview, the visioning future walk is 30 to 50 minutes or longer, solo or with one key person and focused on three to five years from now, generally, or even farther out though, if you've got a major life milestone at a farther point like retirement or kids leaving the home or some other major milestone that's a little farther out than that. It's the longest of the three future walks because you're thinking about the biggest questions. Who do you wanna be? What do you wanna build? What kind of life do you wanna live? And here's what Drift looks like. And this is a big problem this future walk will solve. Drift is when you're working hard, you're accomplishing things, you're advancing your career, you're managing responsibilities, but somewhere along the way you lost sight of what you're working towards. And maybe you had a vision once when you were younger, when you started your career, when you got married, when you had kids, but the daily demands took over. Survival mode became your norm. And now you're years down the road wondering if this is really what you actually wanted. Or maybe you never even had a clear vision to begin with. You've been following the path of least resistance, doing what's expected, what others recommend, what worked for them, what's safe, what's next, following the normal pattern that has been set up for you. And now you realize you don't really know what it's leading towards. So the visioning future walk gives you 30 to 50 minutes to step into a place where you can ask big questions. Who do I want to be three to five years from now, or maybe longer? What do I want to build that I'm most proud of? What kind of life do I want to live? And what am I doing now that doesn't serve the person I want to become? When you build the visioning future walk into your rhythm once a quarter, once a year, whenever you feel yourself drifting, you reestablish and reconnect to your long-term vision. And that vision becomes the filter for every decision you make today. So a little science behind this. last episode, I went pretty deep on some more science on the strategic future walk side, because we kind of innately understand that walking's good for us. And we know from some experience, like, oh yeah, I feel a little clearer. My head's a little clearer when I'm out walking. But I the science... is really valuable to understand that it's not just a sense or feeling you get, but there's some real evidential proof about what walking is doing in your brain. So last episode, if you haven't heard that one, go back and revisit that one. If you want to really learn about the science today, I'm just going to cover one smaller component of the science. But again, in those previous episodes, specifically the last one, we talked about how walking increases creativity, improves your executive functioning and reduces stress. But today, just think about this. There's something specific that happens when you walk for an extended period of time that's critical for your long-term visioning. And when you walk for an extended period, and I recommend 30 to 50 minutes based on my experience and practicality and not feeling like this is so big that you can't fit it into your life, but you can definitely go longer. And sometimes they do. But when you walk at all for a longer period of time, you move through different cognitive phases. So those first 10 to 15 minutes, your brain's still kind of processing what's going on around you, your to-do lists, your emails, immediate pressures, your decompressing. And that's why that distance is, or time is really valuable for the daily future walk to help stop reaction and help you be more intentional. Then you get around to the 15 to 20 mark, you finally start to settle when you're out walking and that's when your stress hormones drop. Your mind begins to wander in a productive way. And this is when these creative insights start to emerge. But it's in a longer timeframe, longer than that, that something deeper happens. you access what researchers call deep attention restoration. Your brain shifts from reactive thinking to reflective thinking. You're no longer problem solving the immediate things. You're thinking about the long-term. You're asking these bigger questions. In research on attention restoration theory shows that extended time in nature, especially when walking, allows your brain to recover from directed attention fatigue. You know, this is a mental exhaustion that comes from constantly focusing on immediate tasks and demands. When that fatigue lifts, you gain access to a different kind of thinking that's reflective, it's expansive, it's visionary. You can see patterns you couldn't see before. You can imagine possibilities that once felt out of reach. And you can connect your daily actions to your long-term purpose. So when you take the visioning future walking, give yourself extended time, you're not just thinking about the future, you're actually creating the neurological conditions to see it clearly and design it intentionally. This matters for avoiding drift because drift happens when you lose the connection between what you're doing today and what you're building towards tomorrow. You lose the connection between the present day you and the future you. The visioning future walk restores that connection. It gives you the time and space to step back and ask, is this path taking me where I want to go? If not, what needs to change? That clarity, that reconnection to your long-term vision is what keeps you from drifting or gets you back on course if you have drifted. So let's look at the three ways to use a visioning future walk. And there are three primary ways as a high level overview before we get into the details. The first is a solo visioning walk. You do this when you need clarity on your personal and professional direction. The second is a visioning walk with a coach or a mentor. This is when you need outside perspective to see your blind spots and possibilities. And the third is a visioning walk with a spouse or a life partner. This is when you need to align on a shared vision for your life together or to create one. So I'm going to walk you through each one and then I'll share the story of how the visioning future walk was born from a walk with my husband and I that started actually all of this. And by the way, if you're finding this podcast helpful, please follow it and share it with another person who needs to hear this. Okay, we'll dig into the solo visioning walk. This is the one you take alone when you need clarity in your personal and professional direction. You're asking yourself the big questions about who you want to be and what you want to build. You can use it when you feel unstuck or unclear about your long-term direction, or if you set goals but you keep reverting to your old patterns, or you're at a transition point, maybe a career change or life stage shift or a major decision about a move or a job, where you've been in survival mode and lost sight of what you're working towards, where you just want to build it into like an annual or a quarterly routine to reset and reconnect to your vision. So to do this one, as with all of them, first leave your phone behind, or if you do feel like you need to take it with you for safety, just put it on do not disturb, put it away, so it's there if you need it. Resist the temptation to jot notes on it. Resist the temptation to take photos. You will get sucked into daily life if you pull that phone out for something other than an emergency. You're walk outside at an easy pace for 30 to 50 minutes or longer. You can start just to let yourself decompress. Don't force the big issues immediately. Just walk for 10 to 15 minutes. Just settle the noise. Then you can start by asking yourself a question. I'll give you some examples of questions like, who do I want to be three to five years from now? What am I building towards that I'm most proud of? Or what do I want my life to look like in three to five years? What am I doing now that doesn't serve the person I want to become? Or if I could design my ideal day for five years from now, what would it look and feel like? What do I want to be known for? Then you walk the rest of that time holding onto those questions. Let your mind wander. Do not force any answers. The extended time and your movement will help you access that deeper clarity. And then when you finish with a pen and paper or pencil, spend 10 to 15 minutes writing down one of the following. Sketch a rough visual or a mind map of your five-year vision. who you are, what you've built, how you feel, or write a dream day description of your future dated, say, five years from today in present tense. So you're going to describe your ideal day, who's around you, how you feel, what you're doing, what you've let go of, what your life is like in detail. Or you can just write some bullet points, the person you want to be, the things you want to build, and what you need to let go of to get there. All of these get vivid with your details. Vivid, vivid, yourself into that story. This is a compelling vision that will pull you through the obstacles and the things are gonna try to divert you between now and then. So feel yourself there as you're writing it. This one works because this timeframe gives you access again to that deep reflective thinking that you can't reach in say 10 to 15 minutes. You move past the surface noise of today and into the bigger questions. That pen to paper or pencil debrief immediately after that walk is critical, forces you to move from this like abstract thinking to concrete design. The vision becomes real when you write it down. And remember the research, extended walking creates deep attention restoration. You're not just thinking about the future. You're creating the conditions to see it clearly and design it intentionally. This WAC is about designing your future. When you give yourself this time to ask the big questions, you create or reconnect with your long-term vision. And that vision becomes a filter for every decision you'll make today and in the days following. It creates a... compelling again future purpose behind your current goals and helps you stay on track when discipline and grit fail because those alone will fail to reach your goals. You've really got to have something in the future pulling you through those challenges. And this is how you stop drifting and start building towards something that matters for you. Okay, the second way to do this walk is with a coach or mentor. And this you take when you need outside perspective to see your blind spots and possibilities. You're not just thinking alone. You're thinking with someone who can ask the questions you're not asking yourself. Maybe you're not bold or brave enough to ask them, but just as likely, you're not even considering some other outside perspectives. And that's why it's so valuable to have a second or a trusted person with you who's all about you, again, like a coach or mentor. I love to use this one when I'm coaching someone new, as it helps them think out loud in a safe and reflective setting as we begin our process of working together, setting their vision before we start working on whatever goals they have to get there. You can use this when you're stuck again, and you can't see your path forward or you're at a major crossroads and you need outside perspective. You wanna set a long-term vision to connect your current to your future you. and use this as a framework to set those in between or intermediate goals to help you get there. Or maybe you know you need someone to challenge your assumptions and help you see what you're missing, help you identify those blind spots. So for this one, just invite your coach or mentor to walk with you. Again, leave the phones behind or do not disturb. Walk outside at an easy pace for 30, 50 minutes or longer. Start with just five to 10 minutes where you share where you are now and where you wanna be. Don't rush this part. Let the walking and the environment open things up naturally. It's like, know, when you're exercising, you have to warm up your body before you really start pushing it hard. Same thing with this. You're just warming up your brain, working through these different stages of thinking so that you can get to that deeper level thinking. Then ask your coach or mentor and you can feed them whatever question in advance that you want to discuss. He's asking them to say, know, like, let's think about three to five years from now. How do you want your life to be in all aspects? And paint me a really detailed picture of it. Where are you living? Who are you with? What are you doing? How's your health? All of it, like painting this picture of your life, or they could ask, what would you create or build if you had all the resources you need, or what major challenge in your life do you want to be passed in three to five years? And what will it be replaced with? What might you have learned? Or what are you holding onto that's keeping you from reaching your long-term vision? And you walk side by side for the remainder of the walk. The coach or mentor will listen, ask questions, reflect, help you see what you can't see on your own. They're not solving your problems. They're just helping you to access your own clarity. When you get done, write down whatever vision became clear. If any you were holding on to any assumptions or blind spots, write those down and something that you're committed to doing differently. So this one works because when you're stuck, you can't see your own blind spots. You're too close to the problem. A coach or mentor can ask the questions you're not asking yourself and help you see the possibilities you're not able to see. And the side-by-side positioning matters because you're both looking ahead, moving forward together. This creates psychological safety and reduces defensiveness. You're not being evaluated, you're being supported. And again, this extended time of 30 to 50 minutes gives you both space to go deep. You move past the surface level conversation and into what really matters. And because you're walking, especially in nature, your brain is in the optimal state for reflective and visionary thinking. This walk with a mentor or coach is not about advice giving. It's about accessing your own clarity that you can't reach on your own. When you walk side by side with someone who can ask the right questions, you begin to see possibilities you couldn't see before. And that outside perspective can be the difference between you staying stuck and moving forward with clarity and intention. This last one is the visioning walk with a spouse or a life partner. This is what you take when you need to align on a shared vision for your life together. You're not just thinking about your individual goals. You're designing your future together, that collective future that you're building together. And you can use this when you are maybe feeling disconnected or misaligned. or you're facing a major life transition, like a new job or city, kids leaving the home, retirement, or you have it built into your rhythm of your life together. Maybe you have an annual reset to reconnect to your shared vision, or you're making just a big decision together and you need to get on the same page. For this one, invite your spouse or partner to walk with you. Again, leave the phones behind or do not disturb. Walk outside at an easy pace for this walk and start again with five to 10 minutes of light conversation or silence. Just let the environment and move and like your movement open things up naturally. Don't force the big questions immediately. Chit chat, talk about your day, talk about whatever. And then when you're feeling comfortable and then you'll know when it's the right time, you know, Hey, could start to ask one of these questions or start the conversation with this. Where and how do we want to be in three, four, five years? Or what are we building together that we're most excited about? Or what do we want our life to look like in five years? Maybe what are we doing now that doesn't help facilitate or serve that life that we want to build together? Or if we could design our ideal life for five years from now or when so-and-so goes to college or when we retire, what would it look like? What do we wanna be known as for as a couple or a family? And then walk side by side for the duration of the walk. This is a collaborative visioning process. You're building on each other's ideas, not defending positions. Listen to one another, reflect, ask deeper questions, dream together. And then when you get done, spend a few minutes, 10 or 15 normally will work, just doing one of the following. One person writes their vision for five minutes and shares it aloud and identifies alignment and share commitments. And the other person does the same, or you could both write them at the same time and then share them out loud. When you finish the spend, spend some time, maybe 10 to 15 minutes doing just one of the following. You both write your vision for five minutes and then share them out loud and identify any places of alignment and share commitments. Or together, sketch a rough visual of what your shared five-year life looks like, that shared five-year vision. Or together, write that dream day description of your future, dated five years from now in present tense, again, in very vivid language, compelling, pulling you forward. This works because when you're sitting across from each other, say at the counter or the kitchen table, and you're trying to have this conversation, it's so easy and tempting to get sucked into logistics and stuck on disagreements or defensiveness. But when you're walking side by side, that dynamic shifts. You're literally moving in the same direction. Physically, you're both looking ahead. And this side-by-side positioning creates psychological safety. You're not defending or performing or advocating. You're just dreaming together. And then this extended time of 30 to 50 minutes gives you both the space to move past that surface level conversation and into those deeper questions about what you want your life together to look like. Remember this research that extended walking creates deep attention restoration. you're both accessing that reflective and visionary thinking. And when you're doing that together, you're designing a shared future that you're both excited about. So this is where the whole future walk was born. And this is why this is my last example in these three episodes of diving deep into the daily, the strategic and now the visioning future walk. So where this came from is about nine years ago, now coming upon 10, my husband and I were really deep in the chaos of life. We were both in these high stress FBI careers and I was leading national security programs for a state and he was very, very involved and engaged in his work and we're raising two kids and we had no family support within a couple of days drive either direction. we literally made it work with spreadsheets and tag team parenting. And I was honestly, I was leading much the same way I was living, jumping from crisis to crisis. never stopping long enough to think much less lead with presence. And some weeks truthfully felt like pure survival. My husband and I, our only consistent connection was an evening walk when we were both home. It was necessitated because we had a dog back then, but that was like a really good thing that we had to get out and do this. And so we made it happen when we were both there. We use these walks to download the day and plan for the next. They were normally very logistical. One night, Instead, for some reason, I still don't know why, but we started talking about the future and it wasn't about the next day future. was like the next decade. We asked ourselves, where do we want to be? Like, what's this all for? Who do we want to become? How do we want our life to be when our youngest goes off to college? That night became our 11 year plan. That conversation was the first future walk. Now much farther out than that three to five framework I'm talking about. And again, you can go really long if you want to, but we continue to do these. And literally every major decision since has been based on what that conversation led to. You go into grad school, that's having job changes, moving across the country twice, promotions, how we spend, where we live, how we take care of our health and fitness, all of it. Not all of that was established during that first conversation. It's these subsequent shorter term visioning walks we've had where we get closer to that three to five year timeframe. And then I brought this into my leadership. I can again, walking and talking with people I led instead of sitting across the desk. I use it for my own clarity, use it when I mentored and coached and this time outside creates a space, widens the frame of reference and help bring me to what matters. It literally changed my life, my personal life and my leadership. And this is Absolutely the reason I do what I'm doing now, helping other leaders do the same so you can create a future you look forward to and are proud to live. So the visioning future walk with your spouse or life partner, again, is it's sort about solving problems or daily logistics, making decisions. It's about creating or reconnecting to a shared vision for your life together. When you walk side by side and ask the big questions, you're designing together a future that you're both excited about and committed to building. You'll continue to refine it and fine tune it and adjust it along the way with repeated visioning future walks. you've got to start with that far off vision. That shared vision becomes a foundation for all the decisions you make together. Okay. And one last time, if you're still wondering, why do I have to go so long? Why can't I just do 20 to 30 minutes like a strategic walk? Well, this is what I've learned from experience. Visioning takes time. You need time to decompress, to quiet the noise, to move past the surface level thinking, to access deeper reflection. Need time to ask those big questions and not force the answer, just kind of let it emerge. You sometimes when I'll go out, I'll just kind of plant a seed. and I'll just let it float there. And then I'll start with the walk and immersing myself in nature. sometime in, you know, for me, it's generally around the 20 to 30 minute mark, my brain starts to come back to whatever it was I seeded at the beginning and ideas to start coming up. And that's when I know I'm in the head space for this creative thinking. Again, it's this deep. attention restoration, the kind of cognitive shift that lets you think reflectively and expansively about that long-term future. And if you do find that you can't do 30 to 50 minutes, well, I really encourage that. Give it, you know, give it a, give it something 20 to 30 minutes to give yourself some clarity. But if you still find that you're stuck, like you've only got 20 or 30 minutes to go. Maybe just hold off on doing this walk until you can really protect a 30 to 50 minute timeframe. And start to, instead of feeling like you're having to force it into your existing calendar, put this one out there where you've still got some white space in your calendar and then protect the time around it so you actually do this. This is wonderful, at least like once a year for visioning, maybe sooner or more frequently rather if you want to do it. like every six months or every quarter, but at least once a year, put it on the calendar, protect that space around it. This is one of the highest leverage investments you can make in your life and your leadership. So again, this is how I think of the future walks. A little bit of the rhythm. The daily is 10 to 15 minutes. It, you do it daily, focusing on the rest of whatever day you were in and it keeps you from reacting day to day. The strategic. 20 to 30 minutes, he'll help you make better decisions and lead more effectively month to month and quarter to quarter. And then visioning, this is the 30 plus minute walk. It'll keep you drifting year to year or help you identify what it is you're working for to begin with. And together, these create a rhythm of intentional leadership and living at every time horizon. Okay, so today we covered the visioning future walk. You got the solo, who do I want to be? How do I want to be three to five years from now? The one with a coach or mentor to get outside perspective and see your blind spots and your possibilities. And then the one with your spouse or partner to build a shared vision for your life together. Pick one of these three ways and try it this quarter. So put something on your calendar where you've got enough time. to do the whole thing. If you're feeling stuck or unclear about your direction, take the solo walk and ask yourself, who do I want to be at whatever time period, three, four, five years from now. If you need outside perspective, invite your coach or a mentor to walk with you and explore where you are and where you want to be and maybe what's keeping you from getting there. If you and your partner need to reconnect or create a shared vision, invite them to walk with you and ask the same questions. Just pick one, 30 to 50 minutes and see what becomes clear. All right, coming up, I'll be sharing some real stories from leaders who've used the FutureWAC and other tools to get unstuck, make better decisions and stay connected or reconnect to their visions. You'll hear some challenges, some breakthroughs and some specific practices that help them. And if you haven't listened to episode one yet, go back and give it a listen, get the full overview of all three types of future walks and how they come together. This visioning future walk literally changed my life, my family life, as well as my leadership life. This is where it all began for me, for us, is how I've designed every major transition, every big decision, every long-term goal, and it can do the same for you. So step outside, leave your phone. take 30 to 50 minutes and design a future you're excited about and proud to live. Thanks for joining me on the Future Walk podcast. I'm Sarah Draper and I'll see you soon. Until then, enjoy your walk.