My experience of Future Authoring and what it started for me
Back in March of 2020, Covid-19 was sweeping the western world and we were all feeling conflicted and confused and maybe a bit scared about the idea that we have to stay in our homes.
Meanwhile, I was confused for different reasons. I was suddenly saving lots of time on my commute each day, and feeling guilty for absolutely loving it. The extra time and headspace began to ignite this creative energy in me, which was usually taken up in my daily work as a designer/developer.
I started to dream bigger and beyond the small daily incremental changes and challenges that I usually had capacity for in the weekly rhythms of extension, recovery and rest from work life.
At first this meant that I started lots of random hobbies and mini projects… and I mean lots. I was designing a font, exploring aeroponics, writing a children's book, and restoring furniture, to name a few. And I was hoovering up whatever I could get my eyeballs on in the glorious YouTube algorithm - anything concerning political matters, Brazillian Jiu Jitsu, bushcraft, passive income, pottery, interior design, philosophy - you name it.
I was very fortunate that Self Authoring was one of the things that also fell into this gap, as it proved to be highly formative, and put all of those other random interests into priority and perspective.
Self Authoring is a writing exercise developed by a group of Canadian psychologists, including the inimitable and idiosyncratic Jordan B. Peterson. And it’s aimed at helping individuals develop greater self awareness and resilience. It’s made up of three modules, Past Authoring, Present Authoring and Future Authoring. The latter will be the one that I will focus on today, as it’s what sparked this marvellous project of Thoughts on Purpose.
Despite the simplicity of the tool itself, it had a profoundly transformative effect on me.
It helped me to:
Get honest about the life I want to avoid and for what reasons.
Think through the kind of life I want to live and what I want to give myself to.
To find the motivation needed to move in the right direction.
To create practical plans to move toward each goal, broken down into bite-sized chunks.
To prepare fallback plans in the event of self sabotage or things not going my way.
To establish a process of reviewing and updating my goals to ensure that they remain meaningful and relevant.
In the end, after almost 10,000 words, I was left with:
a sort of ‘life statement’ which summarised my long term vision.
8 long term goals broken down into
The smaller contingent aims which make up the larger goal
My motivation and reason for the goal
My plan for achieving it
My fallback plan
My plan for monitoring progress
A profound sense of clarity and vitality for life.
It helped me to see things about my life and my desires that were too close to notice otherwise. Unexpectedly, it also helped me to identify things that I had not realised were holding me back and to turn these roadblocks into new roadmaps.
Indeed, sometimes our greatest purpose and meaning in life is found precisely in dedicating ourselves to dismantling those very roadblocks.
I think that purpose is not so much a matter of finding the right pleasure to pursue, but more a matter of finding the right problems to fix.
Mine was mentoring.
I was struggling to find a way to mentor young people. I noticed that other people in church groups were having the same problem: how can we help offer young people guidance in this confusing world? There just isn’t the cultural framework or single intellectual framework that is needed to help establish the right expectations for a thriving coaching relationship to flourish. And how can we do it in a way that encourages independence and a break from the passive teacher/pupil dynamic?
When I realised that so many of my skills could be applied to this problem, it became an exciting opportunity and not just a roadblock. And this is, of course, what led to the start of this project Thoughts On Purpose.
You can find out more about the journey in this post here:
But it took a time of extended reflection, carefully curated by the Future Authoring program, for me to realise these things, and to pick out it’s place in the wider picture of my life (as I have lots of other things that are important to me as well).
So, while Future Authoring requires a big investment of your time, it’s one that is well worth it. Who knows what scary-good ambitions you could discover hiding away in yourself? But, be warned! Once it’s out, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
If you want to give it a go yourself, here’s a post with more details:
Godspeed,
T Mo.
Further Reading
Anya Kemenetz discusses on Oprah.com how Self Authoring helped her
Some more thoughts on NPR about the uses of Self Authoring in education