For 17 years, Sommers has been speaking and consulting on strategic foresight and innovation. Her book, Think Like a Futurist: Know What Changes, What Doesn’t, and What’s Next, shares some of the tools and techniques to break free from the “Permanent Present”—the bias for projecting current conditions into the future. Here, she gives Pollenites four practices to sustain change.
Four Practices:
Practice optimism.
It’s a state. What will come up first, last, and in between is the fear, and you want to challenge that with a positive potential. Do so by setting in yourself a more open brain. Just smile. It’s a physical shift. Correct yourself when you find yourself not smiling. Positivity ratio. For every negative thought we have, it takes three positive thoughts or experiences to balance that out. Whenever there’s a negative experience, think of three positives.
Practice curiosity.
This is what you do when you face a problem. You’re stuck. You don’t know what to do. When this happens you just don’t know enough information to make a decision. When we’re in a problem state we think there is something wrong (wrong with me, wrong with the world). Instead, practice curiosity. You’re way through stuck to flow is when you can see the solutions—something you haven’t seen before. You’re crafting a learning terminal. When you get stuck, practice curiosity. Ask yourself: What do I not know about there? Where can I start looking way outside myself? That’s how you find your way forward. Creating the opportunity for discovery. The ah ha moment. You’re energized. You see your way through.
Practice courage.
This one occurred to me in my chiropractic days. What I was hearing from people was their self-assessments: “I’m not that courageous.” We have to practice it in the small ways every day. Not when we’re scared shitless. Grow your capacity to take bigger risks. Say hello to people you don’t know. Show yourself you can survive something—the small act of courage of “excuse me, I don’t agree.” You begin to build a capacity in yourself that you can draw from in the bigger moments. Most situations in which people are caught in fear are because they’re afraid to make a decision. They think it’s an all or nothing decision. What it takes to move in life is to keep making decisions. Each decision is not the last one; it’s just the next one. The way to move away from fear is to make a decision and take action. Each time you do that, you’re practicing courage.
Practice patience.
When you’re swimming in uncertainty, self doubt, you don’t get to say when things become clear. Things aren’t clear until they’re clear. You have to give it time until the clarity smacks you upside the head and you allow it to be okay. Evolution—the change that begets change—and the patience in that process. We get to have goals and pursue them and evaluate the outcomes. Just have to let things hang out there for awhile.
Read our in-depth feature on Cecily for more on the art of reinvention.