Psychology of the Future
Psychology of the futures, that sounds like a difficult phrase. Don’t worry, I will tell you what it means! You can think about the futures in many different ways! For example: you can think the futures will be amazing or you can think it will be terrible. The way you think about the futures will have an influence on how you feel and act upon it!
Let me show you how it works!
Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset
Every one of us looks at the futures differently. Perhaps you’re an optimistic person, and you have hope for your futures. Or perhaps you are pessimistic and say that humanity is doomed to fail and you cannot do anything to change it.
Being optimistic and pessimistic are part of the type of mindsets you can have about the futures: fixed mindset versus growth mindset. Let’s try to understand how each mindset interprets different events!
Why is it important to have a growth mindset, you may ask? The way you think about things determines how these things affect you. People with growth mindsets will see difficulties as an opportunity to improve and to develop new skills. People with a fixed mindset will think that they cannot change the way things are and give up. People can have growth or fixed mindsets about their own lives, but also about the world in general.
For example: it’s quite easy to just say “well, there is nothing I can do about climate change, it’s bigger than me” because this way you don’t have to take any action. However, if you have a growth mindset you will see this as an opportunity to reflect upon your own behavior and take small steps in order to contribute to it positively. For example: eating fewer dairy products or flying less by plane.
Short Term Thinking vs Long Term Thinking
There are other interesting aspects to the psychology of the futures. Some say there are two ways of thinking: short-term thinking and long-term thinking. Maybe try thinking of that time when you saved your allowance money for many months in order to buy a new laptop so you can participate in online classes.
This is an example of long-term thinking: you planned your actions for a longer time in the futures so you could get a result that will pay off in the long run (in this case, it will contribute to your education!). Even though this probably wasn’t easy at all, you were disciplined and didn’t spend the money your parents gave you right away. If you would have spent that money immediately on something else, then you would have practiced short-term thinking. For example: going out with your friends instead of studying for your exam. When you do short-term thinking, you don’t really care if your actions have a good or a bad influence on your futures, as long as it feels good at the moment.
Let me introduce you to the metaphor of the acorn and marshmallow brains, which both represent these two ways of thinking:
