Future MindFraming

According to Marty McFly in the classic 1985 movie Back to the Future, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.”

Now that we live in the future, in a world where there is more information available at your fingertips than you could ever consume, at a time where it only takes a click to pick the brains of the most brilliant experts of our era, it can indeed seem like anything is possible. One just needs a bit of imagination and determination.

Why is it then that we struggle so much to accomplish our goals? That we start many projects but only finish a few, if any? That we spend so much time procrastinating instead of learning and creating?

And why do 92% of people never achieve their New Year’s goals while others seem to more easily manage to stick to their plan?

Some will sign up to an online course and finish it in a few months, then build their first web application, while others will announce every six months that they are going to start studying Spanish again.

Some will take some cooking classes and invite you every week to try their new, improved recipes, while others will get a gym membership and stop going after a week.

My theory is that it’s all about having the right or the wrong mind frame—sometimes called “mindframe” in one word or “frame of mind”—for the task. You can have the best tools and strategies, but if you don’t have the right mind frame, things are not going to work.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, a mind frame is a mental attitude or outlook. It’s more than just a mood, it encompasses the particular way someone thinks or feels about something, and deeply influences one’s behaviour.

What I find interesting is that mind frames are always presented as states in which the individual is bound to be. A mind frame seems to be a passive state.

It influences how the individual thinks and acts, but we rarely discuss how the individual can influence their mind frames.

And this may be what is wrong with our approach in setting, managing, and achieving our goals. Instead of shaping our mind frames in a way that plays in our favour and makes it easy for us to progress and feel fulfilled, we see positive mind frames as lucky aids, and negative mind frames as inevitable obstacles.

Seeing it through

Like most people, there are many areas of my life where I would like to improve. But there’s one thing I’ve become better at: finishing what I started.

Mindframing is a word I made up to describe the process I use in many aspects of my life in order to see things through. It’s all about shaping my mind frames to achieve my goals.

While you could probably apply it to literally any area of your life where you’d like to grow, even personal aspects, I find it particularly useful for learning and creating.

It’s a bit of a work-in-progress framework for studying how to grow as a person, and, if you find it useful, a flexible tool for creative people that want to grow through learning and making.

As I use it everyday, it keeps evolving, but you may find it a solid methodology to achieve more and finish what you started.

(quick note that this is obviously not a behavioural therapy framework that would address any underlying mental health issues you may be struggling with)

Be Your Future Me Now!

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