Using a vision board to trigger your desired future self
Accessing your own flow states and becoming your own dopamine programmer will be a crucial capacity to build in a time when AI and behavioral psychology meet to enslave you into continuous streams of irrelevant information and distraction.
From paintings on cave walls onward, one tool humans have used to trigger themselves into the state of feeling their future accomplishments is to create a vision board — a depiction of their desired futures. This helps, especially in the “cold dark winter months” that sometimes occur as life hands us the situations we require to grow to become our next aspirational self.
Since we also continuously get to update the rituals we use, I created my new vision board with tools appropriate for our time:
1. First, I wrote a series of notes on my desired future, allowing a certain randomness and automatic writing in order to access my own visionary capacities
2. Then I took these notes and fed them into chatgpt and had it create a prompt for an image generator
3. I fed this prompt into midjourney and asked it to generate a collage in the style of Max Ernst (whose aesthetic I fancy). I am not even sure what each of the elements in the resulting collage stand for at this point, but it doesn’t even matter as I associate the whole image with my desired emotional state
4. Finally, I had the imagine printed on coasters, which are now strewn about my house
Each time I see one of them consciously — or unconsciously — it triggers the emotional state of joy and gratitude, and appreciation for who I am growing to become — as if I had already achieved it. This in turn creates energy, excitement and intrinsic motivation around the things I am doing every day (even if it is doing my accounting) — and it’s a lot of fun as the silliness of it all amuses me on top of it ;-)
What are ways in which you trigger yourself into desirable states?
What symbols or rituals do you use to remind yourself of being your best and authentic self while growing toward your own aspirations?
The future belongs to those who create it. What kind of future can you envision? For yourself, for your organization, for the planet?
Connect with me through LUMAN or http://philiphorvath.com and let’s create the future together.
