As a little kid, the Magic 8-ball was a prized possession. It represented in our minds a prediction into the future. 20 possible answers that would determine if Santa was getting me the gift I wanted this Christmas, whether I was going to dominate my test in school, or I’m sure the most asked question, “does so and so like me?”. The strategy was simply relying on hope to unveil the future.

As we fast forward to today, is there a part of us still holding on to the 8-ball method as a strategy? While we may not literally be asking and shaking the magic 8-ball to tell our future, are we hoping that things will just work out based on chance?

While a sense of hope is always important, hope cannot be the strategy. We must own what’s in our control to create our authentic path forward. Not a path that will magically appear but instead, a path deliberately created.

While we won’t have all the answers to where we may be going, we can have a vision of who that person is we’re trying to become. Whatever aspect of life – relationships, career, health and fitness, community leader – we can focus on developing that vision of who we’re striving to be. Instead of waiting for hope to magically take us to where we want to be, we can be deliberate with our effort by clearly laying out who we’re striving to become.

Instead of taking the magic 8-ball and letting hope drive the course, consider a deliberate approach and leverage some of the following techniques:

• Pause and reflect – take time to understand your authentic vision for who you’re striving to be.
• Leverage visual representation (vision board for example) of who you’re striving to be to help the mind be able to recall these images on your journey.
• Challenge yourself with the following question – am who I’m striving to be my authentic best self or are outside limitations creating restrictions?
• Identify methods to bring in more accelerators that deliver a boost forward to who you’re striving to be (add link to accelerators).
• Each week (some may prefer daily) identify what deliberate action needs to take place striving towards the better version of yourself.

What are some other approaches you’ve used to shift from hoping to taking deliberate action?

Take your step: identify one aspect of your life you want to invest time striving for a better version of yourself (specific relationship, career related, fitness related, etc.). Take time for an honest assessment of yourself where hope is a strategy or whether deliberate attention and effort is being made. Where hope is identified as a strategy, practice methods above or techniques you’ve come up with to shift the mind from hoping to taking deliberate action. Example – striving for a better fitness version of yourself will take more than showing up to the gym. There will need to be deliberate effort on how to carry out the workout most effectively to who you’re striving to become.