| | | | | | "I'm not an optimist. That makes me sound naive. I'm a very serious 'possibilist.' That's something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reason…" Hans Rosling was a meliorist. But he didn't make it up. nytimes.com/2022/01/20/spe… | | 1/20/22, 5:57 AM |
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https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/research-finds-that-people-with-this-mindset-are-surprisingly-more-successful-less-stressed.html
ReplyDeleteResearch Finds That People With This Mindset Are Surprisingly More Successful and Less Stressed
Psychologists say this type of mindset helps you stay resilient in the face of uncertainty.
BY MARCEL SCHWANTES, FOUNDER AND CHIEF HUMAN OFFICER, LEADERSHIP FROM THE CORE@MARCELSCHWANTES
As human beings, we have the unique ability to imagine different scenarios and outcomes, daydream up hopeful storylines, plan for the future, and even ruminate on disaster scenarios, regardless of how likely they may be.
How can we strike the balance between blind optimism and cynical thinking to chart a path forward in an unpredictable world, especially when a pandemic offers us no reliable compass for planning ahead?
A newly released research report from coaching and mental fitness company BetterUp's research division, BetterUp Labs, is sharing insights on how future-minded thinking can help people thrive and stay resilient in the face of uncertainty.
The future of thinking
Psychologists refer to this future-mindedness as "prospection" -- the innate human ability to think about the future and envision what's possible.
In September 2021, BetterUp Labs launched a market survey of more than 1,500 U.S. workers and uncovered that people who harness future-mindedness can improve their personal and professional lives, even in spite of uncertainty and unpredictability.
The research found that people who balance optimistic action with thoughtful pragmatism and who imagine potential setbacks are more successful, hopeful, and less stressed than their peers who don't practice future-minded thinking.
What does mean for the future of leadership? Mastering future-minded leadership is not about predicting or anticipating one future, but rather it's envisioning many different future states and possible paths. Instead of thinking about the future as a single target on a linear timeline, it's imagining a variety of futures that follow if-then statements. In other words, for a given set of "ifs," what are the possible "thens"?... (Go to link at the top for full article)