This 10-year plan exercise made me cry, and I’m suing for damages.
I came across a post from Jade Bonacolta of The Quiet Rich with a first slide read:
“Give me 2 minutes, and I’ll teach you how to accelerate your career.”
Okay, I’ll bite. I have 2 minutes.
In the post she shares a legendary exercise from professor Debbie Millman that asks students to take 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to imagine their lives 10 years from the present day, and describe it in as much detail as possible.
Using clarifying questions like:
Where do you wake up? What country, city, environment, type of housing? What’s outside your window?
You get up and do what?
Who’s there?
What’s your health like? Your mindset? Your interests?
Bonacolta notes that the idea here is to dream BIG and in DETAIL with the purpose of envisioning the life you’d have if you had “zero fear of failure.” The original poster says that you might be surprised by what comes out as “we rarely let ourselves dream this freely without constraint.”
After the 30-minute timer goes off, revisit this visualization once a year and add to it as you learn and grow more into yourself.
Bonacolta describes why this exercise works.
“When you envision the life you want in crisp enough detail, you’ll subconsciously move towards it. You make micro-decisions over time that consistently nudge you in that direction.”
I gave this a go, and here’s what happened.
I cried and that surprised me, but not for the reason I thought.
I didn’t cry as I was writing it.
I was lost in the imagining. My muscle of engaging my stream of consciousness sending my pen shooting across the page.
I thought I would feel the pressure of accountability to live up to what I wrote down as I often feel this way in any kind of “vision board” or long-term planning like this, but there was ease with this exercise. I felt free to, as Bonacolta articulates, “dream without restraint” and it was surprisingly seamless to do so.
But as I started writing the beginning of my imaginary ideal day, I hesitated.
Was I a mom or not? Does my “dreaming without constraints” include kids?
The answer would drastically change what my day-to-day would look like.
Was the template of marriage and family too on-the-nose and too expected for me? Does my ideal life instead have me nearing 40 completely engrossed in my career, enriched by my community, my work, and my contribution to the world?
Is my ideal life childless, travel-filled bliss or was I sweeping up tossed Cheerios from the kitchen floor?
I thought about it for a minute and then my subconscious took the wheel, making things crystal clear.
As I let my pen fly, the entire time, the tear ducts were dry as a bone. It was when I read back what I wrote that the water works kicked into gear.
After my 30 minutes were up, I looked down and found pages of details on where I’d live, what I’d do for work, and the community I’d have around me.
But the majority of what I wrote was not work-related or impact-related or community-related.
80% of my pages described the atmosphere of the life for the kids who would know it as home.
I’ve never been hellbent on being a mom, but in this exercise, my pen just went on and on.
My ideal day in 2033 started with me retrieving my kiddos from bed for breakfast then taking a slow, meandering walk with our pups to a nearby lake where every day we say good morning to the ducks, deer, and birds.
The kids have neighbors and friends nearby they’re growing up with, families they know and guardians of all backgrounds they learn from.
They spend the day outside in gardens, building makeshift forts, reading books, doing crafts, and filling their imaginations with color and stories.
We watch a lot of movies under the stars and talk about what art forms make us think and feel.
We’re allowed to cry when we’re hurt, scared, or angry, and aren’t shamed for it.
The world is big and that excites us. There’s so much to explore, but home is the sanctuary where we always know we can land safely.
When the world is scary and confusing, home is where we can ask questions, sort through it all, and choose who we want to be.
Our family isn’t perfect. We’re a group of first-time humans doing our best, but inside the walls it’s warm, welcoming, and full of music, books, animals, snacks, and love.
I highly suggest giving this exercise a try for yourself.
Before doing it, I didn’t realize my heart had so much to imagine.