Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast where we have conversations with futurists, innovators and big thinkers about what lies ahead. We explore emerging trends on the horizon and what it means to be a futurist.
Think Forward: Conversations with Futurists, Innovators and Big Thinkers
FIF Series EP 82 - Personal Futures Mapping
Personal Futures Mapping provides tools to visualize possible futures and align daily decisions with long-term goals in an era of unprecedented change and complexity. This powerful approach helps you anticipate how broader shifts might affect your life, identify emerging opportunities, and prepare for potential disruptions to your career or industry.
• Understanding the Three Horizons framework: present reality (H1), long-term vision (H3), and bridges between them (H2)
• Connecting broader super shifts to your personal future through relevant implications
• Using visual tools like Futures Wheels, Scenario Matrices, and Timeline Mapping to explore possibilities
• Aligning daily decisions with long-term futures through decision filtering and skill portfolio development
• Navigating the emotional landscape of futures thinking by focusing on agency rather than prediction
• Creating small experiments to test assumptions and gather real-world data
• Scheduling regular review sessions to keep your futures map responsive to emerging developments
The future isn't something that just happens to you. It's something you actively shape through your awareness, choices and actions. Keep exploring, keep mapping, and as always, think forward.
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Thank you for joining me on this ongoing journey into the future. Until next time, stay curious, and always think forward.
Welcome to the Think Forward podcast, where we speak with futurists, innovators and big thinkers. Come along with your host, steve Fisher, and explore the future together.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to Foundations in Foresight a Think Forward series. I'm Steve Fisher, and today we're diving into something that brings foresight directly into your personal life and decision-making personal futures mapping. Personal Futures Mapping. So far in our journey, we've explored powerful frameworks, discussed super shifts reshaping our world and examined how organizations can build foresight capabilities. But today we're making it personal, because here's the truth All the frameworks and methods in the world don't matter if they don't help you navigate your own future more effectively. Personal Futures Mapping is exactly what it sounds like Building your own future more effectively. Personal futures mapping is exactly what it sounds like building your own map of possible futures that connects directly to your goals, decisions and life trajectory. It's about taking everything we've learned about signals, trends, drivers and super shifts and applying them to what matters most to you personally. By the end of this episode, you'll have concrete tools to visualize multiple personal futures, align your daily decisions with your long-term vision and make foresight a practical part of your life journey.
Speaker 2:Let's dive in why personal futures mapping matters. Before we get into the how, let's talk about why this matters so much. We live in an era of unprecedented change and complexity. The decisions you make today about your career, career skills, finances, health and relationships will play out in a future that looks very different from today. Think about it Ten years ago, who predicted that remote work would become mainstream almost overnight, or that AI tools would transform creative fields from writing to design, or that entire new career paths would emerge, while others began to fade away? The people who navigated these shifts most successfully weren't necessarily the ones with the most resources or the best connections. They were the ones who developed personal foresight, who anticipated emerging possibilities, prepared for multiple scenarios and positioned themselves to adapt to changing conditions. Personal futures mapping gives you that same advantage. It helps you anticipate how broader shifts might affect your personal and professional life, Identify emerging opportunities before they become obvious to everyone. Prepare for potential disruptions to your career or industry. Make better decisions that account for multiple possible futures. Align your short-term actions with your long-term aspirations. In essence, it's about developing your own personal early warning system and strategic compass rolled into one the Three Horizons of Personal Futures.
Speaker 2:A powerful framework for personal futures mapping is the Three Horizons approach. While this framework is often used for organizational strategy, it's incredibly valuable for personal foresight as well. In the Three Horizons framework, we look at three distinct timeframes. Horizon 1 represents your current reality, the present conditions, patterns and systems that define your life today. This includes your current job, skills, relationships, financial situation and daily routines. Horizon 3 represents your long-term vision, the future you aspire to create several years from now. This might involve a career transformation, financial independence, relocating to a different part of the world or developing mastery in a field that fascinates you. Horizon 2 is the bridge between your present and your preferred future, the transitions, experiments and stepping stones that help you move from Horizon 1 to Horizon 3. The magic of this approach is that it helps you hold all three horizons in mind simultaneously. You're not just focused on today's urgent matters Horizon 1, or dreaming about a distant future Horizon 3. You're actively identifying and creating the bridges Horizon 2, that connect your present reality to your desired future.
Speaker 2:Let's make this concrete with an exercise. Take a sheet of paper and divide it into three columns labeled H1, h2, and H3. In the H1 column, honestly assess your current reality. What's working well, what's not working? What patterns do you see in your career, relationships, health and personal development? In the H3 column, describe your aspirational future five to 10 years from now. Don't limit yourself to what seems likely based on your current trajectory. Imagine what's possible if things go exceptionally well. What would your ideal future look like across different domains of your life? Now for the critical part, the H2 column. What bridges can you build between your current reality and your preferred future? What skills do you need to develop? What experiments should you run? What relationships might you need to nurture? What small steps could you take that align with your long-term vision? This Three Horizons map becomes a living document that you can revisit and refine as conditions change and new information emerges.
Speaker 2:Connecting super shifts to your personal future. Now let's integrate the broader super shifts we've discussed throughout this series into your personal futures map. Remember, super shifts are those massive transformative forces reshaping society, technology and culture. Understanding how they might affect your personal future gives you a strategic advantage. Here's how to connect them to your personal futures map.
Speaker 2:Identify relevant super shifts. Which of the nine super shifts are most likely to impact your field, industry or areas of interest? For example, if you work in healthcare, bionexus and Intellifusion might be particularly significant. If you're in energy or sustainability, ecoawakening and Power flow could be more relevant. Map potential implications For each relevant super shift. Brainstorm how it might affect your personal and professional life over the next decade. How could it change your industry? Create new opportunities, disrupt existing career paths, transform daily life? Identify personal signals. What early indicators of these shifts are you already noticing in your life? Are there changes in your workplace, industry or community that signal emerging transformations? Create personal scenarios Based on these super shifts and signals.
Speaker 2:Develop three to four distinct personal future scenarios. These aren't predictions. They're plausible stories about how your future might unfold differently based on how these shifts play out. The merging of human and artificial intelligence might affect your career path. In a scenario where AI augments human creativity, you might envision yourself developing skills to collaborate effectively with AI tools, using them to enhance your creative work, while focusing on strategy and emotional intelligence that AI can't replicate. In a different scenario, where AI disrupts traditional marketing roles, you might imagine transitioning toward experience, design, community building or ethical AI governance, areas where human judgment and empathy remain essential. By exploring multiple scenarios, you're not betting your future on a single prediction. You're developing the flexibility to thrive across different possible futures.
Speaker 2:Tools for visualizing your personal futures. Visual tools can be incredibly powerful for mapping personal futures. They help you see connections, identify patterns and communicate your insights to others. Here are three visual approaches that work particularly well. First personal futures wheel. The futures wheel is a radial diagram that helps you explore implications and ripple effects. Start by writing a significant trend or shift in the center of a page. Then draw spokes outward with first-order implications direct effects this shift might have on your life. From each of these, draw additional spokes representing second-order implications the ripple effects that might emerge from those direct impacts. For example, if AI and creative work is at the center of your wheel, first-order implications might include routine tasks automated, higher value placed on human creativity and need for AI collaboration skills. Second-order implications might include more time for strategic thinking, focus on unique human perspective and potential for new hybrid, creative roles. The futures wheel helps you think systematically about cascading effects and identify opportunities or challenges you might otherwise miss.
Speaker 2:Second Personal Scenario Matrix. This tool helps you visualize multiple futures based on critical uncertainties. Identify two major uncertainties that could significantly impact your future, factors that are both important and difficult to predict. These become the axis of your matrix, creating four distinct scenarios. For instance, if you're planning your career, one axis might be degree of workplace automation low to high and the other might be work structure centralized offices versus distributed teams. This creates four distinct futures to explore High automation with centralized offices, high automation with distributed teams, low automation with centralized offices and low automation with distributed teams. For each quadrant, create a narrative about what your personal and professional life might look like. How would you thrive in that particular future? What skills would be valuable? What challenges might you face?
Speaker 2:Third, personal timeline mapping. Timeline mapping helps you visualize how your personal future might unfold over time. Create a horizontal timeline extending five to ten years into the future. Along this timeline, plot potential developments, transitions and milestones. Include both external events industry shifts, technological developments, societal changes and personal milestones skill development, career transitions, life events. Use color coding to distinguish between things you can directly control and external factors you need to monitor and adapt to. This visualization helps you see how external changes might align with your personal journey and identify critical windows of opportunity or potential challenges.
Speaker 2:Aligning daily decisions with long-term futures. The true power of personal futures mapping comes not from the maps themselves, but from how they inform your decisions today. Here are specific practices for aligning your daily choices with your long-term vision. First, decision filtering. Before making significant decisions, run them through your futures filter. Ask yourself how does this decision align with the futures I want to create? Does it open up possibilities or limit my options? Is it resilient across multiple potential futures or dependent on a specific future unfolding? Does it build bridges toward my horizon three vision? This filtering process ensures that daily choices contribute to your preferred future rather than taking you off course.
Speaker 2:Second, skill portfolio development. Based on your personal futures map, create a portfolio of skills that will serve you across multiple scenarios. This includes core skills that remain valuable regardless of which future unfolds. Option skills that might become extremely valuable in certain futures Hedge skills that protect you against potential disruptions. For example, if you work in design, core skills might include visual thinking and user empathy. Option skills could include AI, prompt engineering and virtual reality design. Hedge skills might include project management and facilitation that remain valuable even if design tools are automated. Thank you. These low-risk experiments help you gather real-world data about possible paths forward. For instance, if you're considering a career pivot, you might experiment by taking a relevant online course, volunteering on a related project or conducting informational interviews with people in that field. Frame these as learning experiments rather than high-stakes decisions. The goal is to gather information, build skills and test whether potential paths align with your values and strengths.
Speaker 2:Fourth, regular reflection and review. Schedule regular sessions to review and update your personal futures map. This might be quarterly, semi-annually or at least once a year. During these reviews, update your map based on new signals and trends you're observing. Assess which futures seem more or less likely given recent developments. Evaluate whether your Horizon 3 vision still resonates or needs adjustment. Identify new bridges and experiments to explore in the coming period. This keeps your futures mapping alive and responsive rather than becoming a static document Navigating emotions and personal futures work.
Speaker 2:One aspect of personal futures mapping that doesn't get enough attention is the emotional dimension. To personal futures mapping that doesn't get enough attention is the emotional dimension. Thinking about possible futures, especially disruptive ones, can trigger anxiety, excitement, hope, fear and a whole range of emotions. These emotional responses are completely normal. The future is inherently uncertain and our brains often perceive uncertainty as threat. But there are ways to work with these emotions productively. Acknowledge the emotional landscape of futures thinking. Notice when you feel resistance, anxiety or over-optimism about certain possibilities. These emotional responses often contain valuable information about your assumptions and blind spots. Practice both optimistic and pragmatic thinking. Explore positive futures that energize and inspire you, but also consider challenging scenarios that help you develop resilience.
Speaker 2:The goal isn't to predict doom, but to build confidence in your ability to navigate whatever emerges. Focus on agency rather than prediction. Instead of trying to predict exactly what will happen, which fuels anxiety, focus on developing the adaptability skills and mindset to thrive across multiple futures. This shift toward agency is empowering rather than overwhelming. Connect with others on the journey. Personal futures mapping doesn't have to be a solitary activity. Share your thinking with trusted friends, colleagues or a coach who can offer different perspectives and support your exploration. From mapping to action your next steps.
Speaker 2:As we wrap up today's exploration of personal futures mapping, let's focus on concrete next steps to begin or deepen your practice. Start with a three horizons map this week. Clarify your current reality H1, your aspirational future H3, and the potential bridges between them H2. Identify two to three super shifts most relevant to your personal and professional life. Explore how they might create both challenges and opportunities for your journey. Create one visual map using either the future's wheel scenario matrix or timeline mapping approach.
Speaker 2:Don't aim for perfection. The goal is to start seeing connections and possibilities. Design a small experiment to test an assumption or explore a potential bridge to your preferred future. Remember, this doesn't have to be a major life change. Even small experiments yield valuable insights. Schedule your first review session three to six months from now. Put it in your calendar as a commitment to your future self.
Speaker 2:Remember personal futures mapping isn't about predicting exactly what will happen. It's about expanding your perception of what's possible, identifying emerging opportunities and making choices today that open doors rather than closing them. Looking ahead, in our next episode, we'll build on this foundation by exploring how to develop a complete personal foresight system tailored to your specific needs, contexts and goals. We'll discuss how to integrate regular scanning, scenario development and strategic decision-making into your life in sustainable ways. Until then, I encourage you to begin mapping your personal futures. Until then, I encourage you to begin mapping your personal futures. The future isn't something that just happens to you. It's something you actively shape through your awareness, choices and actions. The maps you create today will help you navigate tomorrow with greater confidence and clarity. Thank you for joining me. Keep exploring, keep mapping and, as always, think forward.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Think Forward podcast. You can find us on all the major podcast platforms and at wwwthinkforwardshowcom, as well as on YouTube under Think Forward Show. See you next time.
