Leadership and Life
Easily Predict the Future
Forecasting outcomes in your life
Wouldn’t it be great if you could predict the future? Imagine the possibilities!
Believe it or not, you can predict the future. It isn’t as difficult as you think. Predicting the future with uncanny accuracy is possible in many cases. Another way to think of your predictions is by using its synonym, forecast. Forecasting is common in business and life, yet we seldom use it in place of the word predict. However, it is entirely accurate to do so. We will use the terms interchangeably in this article.
To begin making predictions recognize there are many patterns in life. Two types of patterns we need to understand are cyclical patterns and sequential patterns. By observing these patterns, you can accurately forecast the future.
A small caveat — everything has its limits. This includes making predictions, but a little thought and examination can go a long way!
“Knowledge is telling the past. Wisdom is predicting the future.” — W. Timothy Garvey
Let’s first look at the pattern of cycles.
Cycles
Cycles are common in life, and you will find them all around you. Take the cycle of work. You repeat the same cycle over and over again. A few things this cycle may include are waking up, working out, showering, eating breakfast, driving to work, working all day, driving home, eating dinner, relaxing a bit, going to bed. Rinse and repeat, day after day, year after year, decade after decade. By examining this cycle, it is a simple matter to predict much of what will happen each day far into the future.
An essential understanding about predicting the future is you can forecast with a high degree of accuracy in the near term. The further you go timewise, the less accurate you may be. Certain things like the seasons can be predicted far into the future beyond our lifetime. It is a simple matter to predict with a high degree of accuracy the earth will continue to travel around the sun. Winter, spring, summer, and fall will continue to occur for thousands of years into the future as it has for thousands of years in the past. This cycle will repeat itself ad infinitum.
As you introduce more variables into specific parts of cycles, they become less predictable. For example, each season has more variables than simply traveling around the sun. Things such as wind patterns, ocean currents, solar flares, volcanic eruptions, etc., can affect temperatures, precipitation, storms, etc. The simple conclusion is: Fewer variables lead to more accurate predictions. In contrast, a greater number of variables lead to less accuracy.
How many cycles do you notice in life? Give some thought and write them down. For each, you can predict the future. To get you started, here are a few places to look for cycles:
- Work
- Travel
- Computer usage
- Social media habits
- Workdays and weekends
- Vacations and holidays
- Saving for the future
- Hobbies
- Music
- Shows on TV, Netflix, etc.
- Eating habits
- Working out/exercise
I’m sure you can come up with many other areas to find cycles to examine and predict where they will lead you.
Sequential
Another way to predict the future is to look at it as a sequence of events. Many parts of our lives move forward in a consistent manner in which we prefer to move into the future rather than to loop back or go backward.
For example, think about traveling in human history. Man first walked or ran to go from one place to the next. Then he began inventing other forms of transportation such as boats and riding animals like horses. When he developed the wheel and carts, he put the animals to work, pulling them. Next came automobiles and trains. Then air travel, and as recent as 1961, the journey into space! While some cycles may exist within this sequence of events, note the forward movement.
Sequential patterns do not like to reverse. Would you want to go back to older forms of transportation? Once you have experienced the automobile’s freedom, going back to riding in horse-drawn carriages or walking great distances is not as desirable.
This is true for many technological innovations such as the telephone. Can you imagine giving up your smartphone for an old push-button phone, rotary dial phone, or the telegraph? I didn’t think so. How does this apply to predicting the future?
It is an easy matter to predict the phone will continue to develop into the future, as will travel. The phone has evolved from talking on a landline to becoming a handheld computer that is wireless with cameras and video capability. What will come next? You can be sure something will! Who could have predicted the power we now hold in our hands thirty years ago? Imagine thirty years from now!
Transportation is a bit simpler to predict. With love for the independence the car provides, it is evolving away from carbon-based fuels toward the electric. What about a flying car? It has been predicted for many years now, and I can see it happening in my lifetime, can you?
The same is true with everything in life; something will come next.
Let’s look at a more direct impact. Suppose you are 30 years old and maximize your 401k contributions throughout your career for the next 35 years. In that case, I predict you will retire comfortably. This is contingent that you maintain employment, and the 401k or a replacement still exists. It is also assuming typical portfolio growth and inflation rates and that you live that long. As you begin to add these potential variables, you create more uncertainty. Yet each variable can be studied and predicted as to its accuracy as well.
There may be cycles in this example, yet it is truly sequential as the outcome is final.
Another obvious prediction we can all make is that we will die. It is a natural part of life. Eventually, everything and everyone dies. Not a pleasant prediction, but it is rooted in reality.
As with cycles, fewer variables increase the accuracy of the prediction. Conversely, a greater number of variables lowers the accuracy.
Whatever the outcome you predict, remember nothing is guaranteed. Yet don’t forget, much of life is consistent and highly predictable.
Two important factors in predicting
The largest influences in the accuracy of forecasting the future are in two factors we have briefly touched on.
The first is the number of variables. As stated, the greater the number of variables, the lower the potential accuracy of the prediction.
The second factor that can significantly influence a prediction is time. When you attempt to predict something far into the future, there is a chance you will get it wrong. It is a simple matter to predict what your savings will amount to in the short term of a few months or a few years. Yet, in 20 or 30 years, there is the potential to introduce more variables such as future tax rates and inflation that can influence the outcome.
Do not let these factors stop you from looking into the future. While nothing in life is guaranteed, predicting what your life will look like in 5, 10, 20, 30, or more years is of great importance. It is a vital part of planning your life! As the old saying goes, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail! Don’t fail to plan!
“The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future.” — Eric Hoffer
Predicting your future by creating it
If you take nothing else away from all of this discussion about predicting your future, please read this section closely and carefully.
One of the most powerful things you can do in life is to take an active role in creating your future!
By taking the reins in life, seeing where you want to wind up, and making progress toward that destination every day, you can create the life you want.
How can you do this? You can start by saving, working out, eating healthy, appreciating others, growing spiritually, and doing numerous other things. By actively working today, you create the future, and you will be able to predict every part of it with greater accuracy.
“The best way to predict your future is to create it.” — Abraham Lincoln
Final words
There are hundreds of ways to improve your future by looking down the road. If you develop a solid work ethic, improve yourself regularly, plan, forecast your outcomes along the way, I can easily predict your future. By being diligent in doing each of these, I predict you have a fantastic life ahead!
A final word of wisdom — the present is more related to your past than to your future. It is what you have done so far that has gotten you where you are. That is why your rearview mirror is so much smaller than your windshield. What’s ahead of you is full of opportunity!
Take every year of your existence and use it to move into the next year. Sure, some have repeated a few years with no progress. But if you have 40 years of life experience, imagine bringing that entire 40 years to bear on the present to begin creating the best 41st year possible!
You can do it. I predict it is entirely within your reach!
BillAbbate| LinkedIn |Twitter| Medium| Facebook| AmazonAuthorPage | Truth
Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION
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