The futurist mindset carries numerous benefits. It hones your curiosity, heightens your open-mindedness, fosters collaborative skills and awakens your creativity. It allows you to keenly observe signals and trends in the present and anticipate industry trends in the future. It allows you to not just respond to disruptive forces but be that disruptive force – in your organization, market, industry, etc.
If you want to develop a futurist mindset, you’ve come to the right place. Here are four tips for developing a futurist mindset.
Be Brave: Shift from a “What Is to What If” Mindset
To start, let’s take a cue from the world-renowned futurologist Nikolas Badminton, chief Futurist speaker at Futurist.com. In his influential books and keynote speeches, he describes the futurist mindset as a shift from “what is to what if.”
And this is where the journey starts: not with shot-in-the-dark prognostications or confident assertions, but with a quiet, radical shift in one’s perspective. Instead of living your life ensnared in present complexities, free your thinking; allow yourself to live in your imaginative mode instead of just your “reactive” mode.
Be Curious: Keep a Finger on the Pulse
Once you’ve permitted yourself to live in the “what if,” start looking for signs of the future in the present. (This is, again, one of Badminton’s points, which he eloquently outlines in Facing Our Futures).
Keep your finger on the proverbial pulse. Let your curiosity lead you down rabbit holes on various consequential topics: emerging technologies, innovations in business, public policy, global demographic trends, philosophy, poetics, etc.
These bleeding-edge topics often contain clues on the possible futures ahead. For instance, current emerging technologies might demonstrate the germ of a potential that can only flourish in 50 or 100 years. Meanwhile, topics like modern philosophy straddle the outer edges of human thinking, and may present ideas that will become the norm in the next century.
Be Imaginative: Extrapolate Ideas about the Far Future
As you voraciously read and absorb various data and insights, start pulling some pieces together. Maybe you notice that some modern philosophy of the mind takes a physicalist stance on consciousness – that it’s the necessary intangible result of physical brain processes. Meanwhile, you notice that advancements in AI-based decoders have been able to translate brain activity into a continuous stream of text. You can easily extrapolate from these two insights: the future can facilitate uploaded consciousnesses, the semblance of immortal life.
This is one small example. The takeaway here is to be as imaginative as possible – even bordering on absurd or silly. Let your mind freely speculate the biggest ideas it possibly can. You might be surprised how plausible those ideas are in 100 or 200 years.
Be Open: Communicate and Collaborate with Others
The futurist mindset shouldn’t happen in a vacuum. It works best as a collective, collaborative project that brings together several thinkers and perspectives.
Therefore, find like-minded individuals to communicate your ideas with. Write to your futurist idols about your thoughts. Join groups. Get involved in brainstorming sessions at work. Pitch an article on the future to a magazine and work closely with an editor. However, you choose to do it, be a part of the rich tapestry of human thinking around you. It’s one of the concrete ways that developing a futurist mindset can help in your daily life.