Why Looking Back Can Help You See Your Future (How to Map Your Future Strategy)
Most founders rush past the past looking only to the future, and yet our past can reveal hidden insights about where we might be heading and how we might be growing.
Most founders rush past the past looking only to the future, and yet our past can reveal hidden insights about where we might be heading and how we might be growing.
All the business things happen so quickly that you barely take time to notice all that's already happened. Just get past the major milestones and don't celebrate them, because there's always something next on the horizon. You might know that you don't celebrate enough, or that things have felt like a whirlwind. Yeah, sure, you know that you're supposed to celebrate the wins and be more “present.”
I want to make a different case which relates more to your future strategy. One thing that also gets missed as we race forward to create our next success are the key changes that got us to where we are today. Jobs is right. You can connect the dots looking back. When you take time to actually look back and connect some dots, you might find some interesting insight as to how you got here, what creates your success, and some lessons you've learned along the way.
What’s buried in the past?
One major reason we don't often look into the past as entrepreneurs is because that's where some of our greatest mistakes exist. We had painful moments where we were fired as a co-founder, or we got rejected by the investor, or the business we tried to fail did not get off the ground. Because of those painful moments, we don't want to look back.
And yet hidden in the past are secret patterns that tell us not only how we got here but also the ways in which we've changed and grown for the better along the way.
Connecting the Dots
Sitting down with entrepreneurs, going through their history, the chapters of growth that got them here helps me understand them better. More than that, when I do this exercise with founders, they start to recognize for the first time all the change that they've already been through. As we connect the dots for how one thing led to the next, where problems became solutions, and where they overcame challenges to create growth, we start to see a bigger picture of who they've become to get to this moment. Now for the future.
Your future is a continuation of the past. Things you've done months or years ago are tee-ing up events that are still to come. We don't only benefit from the actions we take today, but from the actions we've already taken in the past. We don't We grow from our current problems, but we integrate wisdom from challenges overcome from past ones.
If you look backward in the way that I'm going to show you, you'll start to identify certain traces of how you've grown and changed in your life for the better. To pick up the scent of what your initial thrill was related to the business or idea that you're currently pursuing. See how one door led to the next led to the next. And if we map that further, we'll start to get a sense about where we're heading.
Creating the Map You Need
This is how you can use your past to start gaining a sense of your future. You can use past experiences to showcase where you're going to grow. It's not a surprise that the entrepreneur might eventually want to become the investor. It's not a surprise that the doer seeks to become the teacher. And it's no surprise that people want to tackle new, different, or harder challenges.
Sometimes founders come to me saying that they know they have a good business and yet they don't feel like it could ever fully fulfill them because their vision and dreams are so much bigger. Regardless of the level of success you reach, it's common to seek to want to expand beyond it. This is especially true for founders.
So, knowing where you've been, we can start to imagine where you're going. We can start creating a vision for the future based on:
What you believe you want to learn or still need to learn
What you haven't done yet, what you haven't accomplished
What parts of yourself you haven't expressed
We can start to imagine what that vision might look like and see in the future reflections of the past and growth beyond it.
Chaptering Exercise:
Take a moment to break up the last few chapters of your professional career. Take a sheet of paper and create three to four columns, Numbered. Then, Segment each of these columns as a time period. For example, each one could be a quarter from the past year. Or each one could be one year. The trick is to break down the major phases or chapters of your professional career and whatever feels most relevant to you. If you can't decide what to do, just use chunks of 3 months or 1 year at a time.
Now imagine that each of these segments of time exists like a chapter in a book.
First, title each chapter using a phrase that you think sums up what your experience was like in that era of your career.
Then underneath each chapter, Start jotting down notes on the key things you remember from that chapter.
Here are some good prompts for that:
What are some lessons learned?
Major Wins? (Take a moment to celebrate)
Your life changes in this chapter? (You move cities, open an office, complete a book, Relationship?)
What were the biggest challenges?
What were you grateful for?
Write down anything else that you think might apply as a note. Then, once you've gone through this process, it's time to look for connections. See if any dots connect to each other between chapters. If you can see any way that one door closing led to another one opening, or one action teed up another action. Look for any trace that illuminates something about yourself, your excitement, or how your past might now begin to shape your future.
Taking time to review your past ensures that you aren't missing the aspects of yourself that are most important for you to bring forward. If you can give yourself a moment to celebrate who you've become, this context will help give you insight into where you're going.
xx David
Your business can grow again, and without you at the center… let’s an create your growth roadmap together.