Journaling Prompts to Envision a Future
Tell me about the world you want to live in
Journaling towards a future
Putting into written word the world you want to live in
Last week, I learned a German word: zweckoptimismus. It means optimism, but in a very specific way.
It’s not optimism based on a positive feeling or the blind trust that everything will work out anyhow. Its literal translation is purposeful optimism.
It basically means showing up with optimism every day, because that’s the best way to make positive things happen.
I recently wrote a post about journaling. In it, I mostly just talked about journaling as a tool to document, preserve, and process the present.
But what about the future?
Words have power—the written word especially—even if you don’t share them. Journaling about a present problem can help you find a solution, journaling about something that hurt you can help you heal, and journaling about good news helps you celebrate and find gratitude.
Journaling can also be used as tool to envision the future. Not just work through your worries, if you’re an anxious person like me.
But also actively and intentionally dream up the world you want to live in, put it in ink, and start turning those dreams into action items.
I’m gonna share with you six prompts to get you started. The first three are “smaller” prompts, so to speak, to get you thinking about the life you wanna live.
The last three are meant to be bigger questions to get you started imagining a whole new world. This is a place to be idealistic, imaginative, and purposefully optimistic.
The big question behind it all is what future do you want to create?
The prompts
Envisioning your little life
Prompt #1: write about what makes you smile.
I know, I know, this sounds cliche, sappy, and pretty focused on the right now. But I want you to get very specific. Ask yourself: what would make me smile every day if it was in my surroundings?
It could be as simple as a bouquet of flowers in the kitchen. A framed photo on your bedroom wall. A cat. Rearranging your living room to have more space. Opening the windows to let in natural light more often.
Envision a future where your surroundings make you smile and describe that, in detail.
You can turn this little dream into an action item by making small steps to beautify and you-ify your environment. Go pick those flowers, frame that photo, open the windows first thing in the morning.
Prompt #2: who or what would you like to spend more time with?
Now, imagine a future where you get to spend more time with something of your choosing. It doesn’t even have to be a person, although it very well could be.
It might also be a place you want to visit more often. A hobby you want to practice more. A tradition you want to start.
If, in this envisioned future, you could slice up your time anyway you choose, who (or what) would get a larger piece of the pie?
Now, turn that into an action item. If it’s a person, go call them. Invite them to a coffee, if possible. Maybe it’s a dog! Take them for a walk. Maybe you just want to spend more time outdoors; go for a hike or hit the local park.
In all the busyness of life, it can feel impossible to reclaim your time. It can feel like your life is wasting away as most of your time gets sucked up in things you don’t care about as much.
Let yourself journal as if you have all the time in the world. Now, get out your schedule and make room for what’s most important to you.
When it comes to this number one priority, you do have all the time in the world.
Prompt #3: what do you want to give advice about?
If you could pick anything and become the go-to person for advice on that thing, what would it be? This could be practical or intangible.
Maybe you want to be an expert on bookbinding, gardening, or sewing. Maybe you want to be the go-to person for great recipes.
Maybe you want to have wise advice on relationships. Or career. Or self-improvement.
If, before you die, you could be known for your great advice on anything, what would it be?
Whatever that is, that’s what you need to learn more about. Study more, practice more, be curious about it. Become a lifelong learner.
Envisioning a better future
Prompt #1: List ten demands for your government.
Think long and hard: if you could sit down and reimagine your country’s government with a better future in mind, what would it look like?
I want you to think beyond the status quo. The way things have always been is not necessarily the way things will always be.
Write out ten demands, ten mandates, to reform your government with this better future in mind.
Take your time with it; give yourself the space to really think it through and dream past the confines of the present.
Now, set your list aside. Sleep on it. When you come back to it, start thinking about what it would take to make these demands reality.
Action for this one will probably look different for different people. You probably feel called to different causes than I do and have different ideas of where change should start.
That’s okay. Find your starting point and show up every day with purposeful optimism in the direction of the future you dreamed up.
Prompt #2: what do you want to be remembered for?
Imagine your obituary features a big change you made happen. Something that positively affected many more lives than just your own.
What is it? If you could be remembered for making a big change, what would it be?
It may seem morbid, but I honestly think everyone, at some point, should think about the legacy they’ll leave behind.
It’s good to live in the present moment, but silly to live as if that’s all there is. No one is immortal and, to some extent, everyone has an impact.
Even a small impact ripples out. It can be negative or positive. You don’t control how you’re remembered, but you can control how you live your life.
So, what would you want your legacy to be? Start living your life with that in mind.
Prompt #3: what do you want your grandchildren to experience?
Now, you may or may not ever have grandchildren. But let’s pretend like you do for the sake of this exercise. What do you want your hypothetical grandchildren to experience or enjoy in their lifetimes?
It might be something we have now that you especially want to preserve for them. I have a well-documented love for public libraries. I’d be devastated if I found out future generations didn’t get to have public libraries anymore.
It could also be something we don’t have that you want to provide or improve for them. If you are a grandparent right now, you likely want the whole world for those kids. You want to guarantee they’re never sad, scared, hurting, alone, or hungry.
You can’t solve world hunger. At least, not alone and not all at once.
But you could fight for free school lunches and an end to lunch debt, ensuring that, no matter their circumstances, your grandkids have a meal at school.
Even if you don’t have kids or grandkids and never plan to, you have to acknowledge that there are generations coming after you. I’m not sure who first said it, but there’s a thought-provoking quote on the subject: “we do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our descendants.”
“We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, but borrow it from our descendants.” — Unknown
Just as everyone should put some thought towards their legacy, you should think about what we owe the next generations, and the world we’re leaving them.
Turning dreams into action items
The future is not fixed, we create the future
I’m currently reading Suzanne Collins’ newest Hunger Games prequel, “Sunrise On The Reaping”. One idea she emphasizes is that the future is not fixed. We assume the way it has been is the way it always will be, but we have no evidence of that.
For better or worse, the future is fragile and subject to change. Good things can be taken away, but bad things, too, can be changed.
It’s too easy to sleepwalk through life, assuming nothing will ever change, assuming nothing we do has the power to make change.
None of that’s true. The future is not fixed; we create the future every day with the choices we make.
But you can’t create what you can’t imagine. Journaling to envision a future is not just an exercise in hope, it’s the first step towards turning dreams into action items.
Once you know the direction you want to go, you can start walking.