14‑ The Clock of the Future

»The best way to predict the future is to invent it.«

Alan Kay

You have come a long way with me—congratulations! In this chapter we will, like in a jigsaw puzzle, bring together almost everything you have learned in this book in a single exercise. Depending on how intensively you have worked through the exercises so far, this process will take more or less time. I conceived and developed the original version of this process as part of my NLP Master’s thesis. In a certain sense everything in this book was aimed at making this process understandable for you and enabling you to carry it out now.

“If you truly want something, all fairy tales come true.”

Theodor Herzl

1. Finding goals: collecting material

Put yourself in the state of a child writing a Christmas wish list. The child believes the Christ Child can fulfil every wish—without limitation. Quickly gather goals for the following five areas:

1. Personality, 2. Career, 3. Partnership & Family, 4. Community & Environment, 5. Leisure & Luxury.

Proceed very quickly and write down everything that comes to mind.

My goals for developing my personality are

My business, financial and career goals are

My goals for my partnership and family are

My social, charitable and environmental goals are

My leisure and luxury (fun & play) goals are

2. Checking the goals for well‑formedness

If any of your goals do not meet these requirements, change the wording so that they do.

The target behaviour or state must be achievable by you alone and maintainable by you.
The goal definition must allow you to recognise as early as possible whether you have achieved it or are on the right track.
The target behaviour/state must be well contextualised: specify exactly when, where and in which situation you will display the behaviour or reach the state.
The target behaviour/state must be concrete and sensory‑specific (VAKOG: visual, auditory, kinaesthetic, olfactory, gustatory).
The goal definition must contain no negatives and no comparisons (positively phrased).
The goal must be neither too small nor too large—make it larger or smaller if necessary.
The target behaviour/state must be ecological.

3. Give your goals a time frame and create critical time points.

If you are running this process for the first time, first pick the most important goals and save the others for later. Now assign each important goal a time frame by which the goal or a specific milestone should be reached—for example 1 day, 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Write the times as actual dates, e.g. “in one week, i.e. 15 July 2024” or “in five years, i.e. 8 July 2029.” Do not start calculating and thinking for long—it is not important that you know how you will achieve the goal; you are merely setting fulfilment dates for your wishes.

	Personality	Career	Family & Partnership	Community & Environment	Leisure & Luxury
1st date
2nd date
3rd date
4th date

If you have carried out the steps so far for all goal areas, you now have quite a lot of goals and dates. Group these dates so that you have only a few critical time points in your future at which you may have reached several important goals. A size of three to five time points is recommended. The exercise can, if there are more time points, also be carried out in several sessions—the available time should be taken into account. It is absolutely essential that you perform these exercises in writing. Even if you think you already know everything about goals—do it anyway! These are the basics for anyone who wants success—they must be practised again and again.

Even a basketball player must practise free throws repeatedly until he can hit them in his sleep. Therefore determine a period in which you repeat these exercises and supplement your present ideas with those that occur to you in the meantime. Make sure your goals are always before your eyes.

Repetition is the mother of all skills

Master the basics! Make sure you are not bored when you train. Generate excitement and enthusiasm within yourself for this activity. Goals determine your destiny. They challenge you to surpass your limits and grow. Whoever has no goal is like a leaf blown in every direction by the wind.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, don’t be surprised if you end up somewhere else.”

Mark Twain

A study at Yale University in 1953 asked the graduating class a series of questions, including who had clear, specific goals and a written plan for achieving them. Fewer than 3 percent did. Twenty years later, in 1973, the surviving members of the class were interviewed again. The 3 percent with written goals appeared happier, more satisfied and overall more cheerful. Because such self‑assessments are not directly measurable, researchers also looked at the financial situation of the former graduates and found a remarkable result: the 3 percent with written, specific goals and plans were, by then, wealthier than the other 97 percent combined!

4. Selecting two mentors

Now choose two mentors from your imaginary allies about whose lives you know something. For this format it is useful if you can say something about their behaviour, competence, personality and dream.

5. Circular arrangement of the levels of change

In the following illustration I have no longer depicted the levels of change as steps but as a circle. Imagine this circle lying on the floor before you. If you stand on the outer edge you are on the environment level. One step toward the centre takes you to the behaviour level; the next to competence; then personality; and finally the dream level. If you like you can mark the individual points with cloths or labelled sheets on the floor.

5.1 Stock‑taking

Run through the levels of change in the present state. Note which resources are already available! Begin with environment and ask yourself the questions below related to the “now.” When you have answered all questions, take one step toward the centre and read the questions for behaviour, and so on.

Environment: Where? When? Who else? VAKOG senses
Behaviour: What? Which actions are you performing? Words, motor skills, gestures
Competence: How? Which skills/abilities do you have? Which strategies are available? Thinking, mental level
Personality: Which beliefs, values, life rules do you have? Why? What maxims? What do you hold to be true? Who are you? Basic self‑image, role, demeanour
Dream (mission): Why are you here? What is the meaning of your life? What is your mission?

5.2 Target state

Follow the course of the clock of the future to the first critical time point you defined. Now imagine you have already reached your goal. Again go through each level of change and answer the questions. If it helps, you may adopt the state of the dreamer or visionary from the Walt‑Disney model!

Environment: Where are you? What time is it? VAKOG: what do you see/hear/feel/smell/taste? Behaviour: what are you doing?
Competence: Which special abilities do you have here? How do you do what you do?
Personality: What is important to you here? What do you believe? What motivates you? Which life rules apply? How do you understand yourself?
Dream: What mission do you have here? To what do you belong? What is the meaning of your life?

Your unconscious may send you an idea, an image, a symbol, a feeling, a sentence—whatever—as a gift.

5.3 Collecting resource anchors

Walk back through the levels and gather all resources, insights, new experiences and ideas. Turn them into anchors (kinaesthetic, visual, auditory, etc.).

5.4 Critic

After you reach the outer edge of the clock again, take another step outward. You are now outside your time—dissociated. Here waits a good but sometimes annoying friend: your personal critic! Slip into him and view your protégé’s life with distance. Helpful questions:

a) What do you think about this time point? b) What is still missing? c) Where could obstacles/difficulties/problems/conflicts arise? d) Are there alternatives? e) On which levels are resources still lacking?

5.5 Mentors

Armed with these valuable suggestions you can again walk through the levels of change. This time two mentors are at your sides. Their main task is to force you to develop realistic plans or uncover possibilities when none seem to exist. They walk with you and you can step aside at any time to get help from one of them. Plans and measures are to be noted immediately!

Environment: What can you do to get into this environment? How can you transform or exchange your current environment into this one?
Behaviour: Which habits are necessary? Which are absolutely detrimental? Who already shows this behaviour? Can he/she serve as a model?
Competence: Which abilities do you have in this position? How can you learn them? First steps?
Personality: What enables you to believe…? Can you change your values? What would that accomplish? What reference experiences do you need? What can help you attain this identity?
Dream: Enjoy having reached the dream and being aware of your mission! Then associate into the first mentor and walk back along the mentor line, checking at each level whether you can still do something for your protégé—pay special attention to the dream! Then do the same with the second mentor and finally return in your own position.

When you reach the outer line of the clock again, establish an anchor there that symbolises mastering this critical time point (leave an object, colour the time line, change its shape, create a triangle—whatever you like).

5.6 Second critical time point

If everything fits, continue following the clock of the future until you reach the second critical time point. While walking notice which new resources you gained by mastering the first point (second‑order resources). If new ones appear, note them. Then proceed as with the first point, but the tasks for critic and mentors are now harder: they must watch for goal, value and belief conflicts. Do this for all further critical points.

6. Ending the clock of the future: the old wise magician

Walk much further on the clock until you are in the distant future. I call this position the old wise magician. He is about 80‑100 years old. He looks back on his life and asks: Was this life worth living? What did I do for my environment?
Would I live it the same way again? What would I do differently?
What were the highlights?
What were the low points?
Where did I learn the most?
Would I have avoided all the defeats and disappointments if I could?
Which people would I still like to have met?

This magician can give you valuable information about what to do next. He has already lived through it all. He was exactly in your position, so he can give you precious gifts in the form of information and knowledge. His experience is limitless. When he concludes he would live this life again without regret or restriction and has revealed enough secrets of your future, you can return along the clock of the future to the now.

“An 85‑year‑old man lying on his deathbed, knowing he would soon die, said:

If I had my life to live over,

I would make more mistakes; I would try not to be so terribly perfect.
I would relax more and take many things less seriously.
I would be more exuberant and crazier; I wouldn’t worry so much about my reputation.
I would travel more, climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets.
I would eat more ice‑cream.
I would have more real troubles and fewer imagined ones.
I would go barefoot earlier in spring and later in autumn.
I would smell more flowers, hug more children and tell more people that I love them.

If I had my life to live over—but I don’t….”

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