Imaging Futures: Why Futures Thinking is One of the Most Important Skills to Develop
In recent years, the world has been rocked by a series of unprecedented events — from pandemics to extreme weather to social and political unrest. As Jane McGonigal notes in Imaginable: How To See the Future Coming and Be Ready For Anything, the ubiquity of terms like “unimaginable” and “unthinkable” in news stories tells us something important about our global condition: we feel blindsided by reality. But how do we make plans for the future in an age of seemingly endless shocks? In this article, I discuss the so-called futures mindset based on extensive research and insights from global Futurists.
Collective shock
This expression is used by Jane McGonigal, Director of Futures Research at the IFTF [1], to describe our current state in the face of reality.
And no wonder! The last two years have been particularly challenging. In the midst of a global pandemic, we experienced situations that seemed like science fiction scripts: cities completely locked down; collapsing healthcare systems; millions of “non-essential” jobs disappearing overnight; a sharp reduction in life expectancy… Meanwhile, disinformation campaigns convinced about 20% of the American population that COVID-19 vaccines contained microchips to monitor them; an enraged crowd stormed the Capitol in protest of the presidential election results; and many catastrophes caused by climate change devastated historic places. Between 2020 and 2021, the term “unimaginable” was used in about 2.5 million news articles, while “unthinkable” was used more than 3 million times.
In the middle of this chaotic context, how is it even possible to make plans for the future?
The question is valid. But before moving forward, shall we ask ourselves: were all these events really impossible to imagine?
Futures Mindset
The word “mindset” refers to how we think about something, that is, the perspective we use to interpret possibilities, either positive or negative. However, when we foment this kind of exercise towards the future, our brain behaves in a strange way: instead of thinking about ourselves, we start to imagine events about someone completely different.
The medial prefrontal cortex, or simply mPFC, is the region of the brain responsible for continuity processes — waking up the next day still knowing who you are and what you have to do next, for example. Whenever a person thinks about themselves, the mPFC is activated.
Nonetheless, this activation decreases in intensity as we move away from the object of our thoughts. The problem is that as we try to imagine situations in the future, we create a kind of distance between the current-self and the future-self, causing the brain activity in this region to be drastically reduced. In other words, it’s as if my future-self is someone I don’t know very well and, to be honest, someone I don’t care much about.
This kind of “glitch” ends up being a major obstacle for us to make important decisions or put into practice behaviors that will only have an effect in the mid- and long-term — especially when they require some kind of trade-off with the present.
Overcoming this characteristic is, therefore, the first step to unlock the futures mindset in its full potential. But that there are no magic formulas: it is not possible — at least for now — to completely eliminate the temporal distance. What we can do instead is see our future-selves with a little more empathy, as if it were a different person, but one who is close and even quite dear to us.
Anticipating Futures
Being able to anticipate future risks and challenges can help us start solving problems creatively today. McGonigal suggests that we need to cultivate the ability to prepare for the unexpected, and adopt a mindset of resilience — one that allows us to bounce back from complications and move forward with a sense of purpose. This means being adaptable, resourceful, and open-minded in the face of change. By doing so, we can approach the future with a sense of excitement and curiosity, rather than fear and uncertainty.
One way to cultivate this mindset is to engage in positive and shadow imagination. Positive imagination brings questions like: What’s something good that could happen? It helps us be confident that the future will be better. Shadow imagination, on the other hand, points to What’s something bad that could happen? It builds readiness to face future challenges.
By engaging in both types of imagination, we can develop a more nuanced and realistic view of the future, which allows us to prepare for a range of possibilities. And if anything can increase this ability to influence how the future turns out, it’s planting seeds of imagination in the minds of others who can help us make the changes we’re thinking about.
Embracing change
Change is a necessary part of growth and development. Mandy Hale, an author, emphasizes this point when she says, “Growth is painful. Change is painful. But nothing is as painful as staying stuck where you don’t belong.”
Sometimes we may feel comfortable in our current situation, but if we are not growing, we are not truly living. We need to be open to change in order to move forward and become our best selves.
Many people resist change because they fear the unknown or the potential for failure. But the truth is, this is a natural part of the human experience — even though it can be often overwhelming and intimidating, especially if we do not have a clear sense of direction.
This is where the concept of “When Does the Future Start?” comes in. The future is subjective and different for everyone, and it can be difficult to know when to start planning for it. In his book, “The Art of Possibility,” author and futurist Peter Diamandis suggests that ten years is a magic number for the mind when it comes to creating change. Ten years is enough time to create significant change, but not so much time that it feels impossible to achieve. By setting goals on a ten-year timeline, we can give ourselves a clear direction and purpose, and make progress towards our desired future.
It is crucial to start discussing potential future consequences now, as this allows policymakers to influence the regulations and policies that will shape the future. As futurists, having an open mind to the potential for change is vital in developing innovative and unique ideas about the future.
Strong opinions, lightly held
Episodic futures thinking is an interesting concept that helps people understand their deepest values and needs. The technique involves mentally time-traveling to the future and asking oneself five questions about the situation:
- Where they are
- Who and what is around them
- What is true about this scenario
- What they want
- How they feel
The ability to develop this skill starts as early as four or five years old, and asking children about what they are looking forward to doing helps nurture their future imagination. Additionally, looking back at one’s life ten years ago can help individuals imagine the significant changes that can happen in the future, which is called “looking back to look forward.”
Another key point about Futures Thinking is having strong opinions that are nonetheless lightly held. Bruce Sterling, a science fiction writer, said, “There are best-case scenarios, and there are worst-case scenarios. But neither of them ever happens in the real world.” Therefore, considering possibilities that may seem ridiculous or impossible may reveal potential blind spots in one’s imagination.
Another essential skill is being able to challenge unchangeable facts. While some facts may seem impossible to change, such as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west every day, it is essential to consider how even these “unchangeable” facts may shift in the future. By researching and gathering evidence, such as how the length of days differs on Mars, individuals can begin to think creatively about the future and the possibilities that may arise.
Signals of change
Looking for signals of change is an excellent way to develop a sixth sense or “strange sight” for noticing mind-opening examples of how society and our lives could be modified. Thus, committing to finding one new signal every week is a great start in Futures Thinking.
Once you identify a signal, the next step is to do some analysis and ask yourself several questions about the change, including what kind of change it is, what’s driving or motivating the change, and whether it is a future you want to foment or avoid.
Future forces are significant trends or phenomena that can disrupt or transform society. They often begin as small signals of change and then gather momentum over months, years, or decades. According to a World Economic Forum poll, mental health deterioration, climate change, and economic inequality are the top future forces that will have the most significant global impact over the next ten years.
Thus, and to avoid being shocked or blindsided by possible future crises or disasters, it’s essential to overcome normalcy bias, the brain’s preference for stable patterns. This can be achieved by vividly imagining an event and its potential impact. Even doing this exercise for merely twenty seconds can help overcome the normalcy bias, making it easier to prepare for events that may seem unthinkable today.
Future Simulations
In the wake of tragedies, it can be difficult to imagine a future that feels hopeful. However, as Islander singer Björk suggests, it is necessary to “invent a new world” and “dig a cave into the future and demand space.” This process of envisioning and creating something new is a way to knit or embroider a future that doesn’t yet exist. While it may seem utopian at first, this process can ultimately become one’s reality. In thinking about the future, it’s important to consider what people will want and need, and what kinds of people will be particularly useful in shaping that context.
Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to answer the call to seriously imagine the future. Some people respond with distancing, denial, fatigue, or surrender:
- Distancing involves putting off thinking about the future, assuming it’s not something that needs to be considered right now or that it won’t affect us personally.
- Denial involves rejecting the idea that something could happen in the future, downplaying the risks or exaggerating how unlikely they are.
- Fatigue means feeling too burned out or overwhelmed by present problems to think about hypothetical future ones.
- Surrender, for its turn, involves feeling powerless to do anything about the future and giving up on even trying.
It’s important to recognize and overcome these types of responses in order to create a future that is hopeful and sustainable.
Dreams have been documented in many different species, suggesting that they serve an evolutionary purpose. This purpose may be to help us get “unstuck” from the patterns of the past and think more flexibly about the future.
Computer scientists have discovered that the most effective way to teach human-like intelligence to machines is to give them “noise injections,” or purposely weird and nonsensical data sets that force them to think more adaptively. Similarly, human dreams often involve bizarre and seemingly random combinations of experiences and events that challenge us to think in new and creative ways. By embracing the weirdness of dreams, we can prepare ourselves for encountering strange new things in the future. In this way, dreams may serve as a way of counterbalancing our brains’ natural tendency towards normalcy bias, or the expectation that the future will largely be like the present.
When thinking about scenarios for the future, it can be helpful to classify them into one of four archetypes:
- Growth scenarios involve a positive trajectory of growth and development.
- Constraint scenarios involve challenges that need to be overcome.
- Collapse scenarios involve a negative trajectory of decline and potential catastrophe.
- And Transformation scenarios involve radical change and the creation of something entirely new.
By understanding these archetypes, we can better prepare for and shape the future. Whether we are “digging a cave into the future” or embracing the weirdness of our dreams, we have the power to create a better world for ourselves and the generations to come.
Further readings
Dunne, A.; Raby , F. (2013). Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction, and Social Dreaming. MIT Press.
Ialenti, V. (2020). Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now.
McGonigal, J. (2022). Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything. Spiegel & Grau.
Schroeter, J. (ed.) (2020). After Shock: The World’s Foremost Futurists Reflect on 50 Years of Future Shock.
Smith, S.; Ashby , M. (2020). How to Future: Leading and Sense Making in an Age of Hyperchange. Kogan Page.
Webb, A.; Hessel, A. (2022). The Genesis Machine: Our Quest to Rewrite Life in the Age of Synthetic Biology.
Footnotes
[1] IFTF: Institute for the Future
