A New Year Exercise: Picturing your future self

Last week, the RCL team was joined by Dr. Tracy Alloway to discuss alternatives to making New Year’s Resolutions. Dr. Alloway suggested an exercise in which you examine your future self. She suggested taking time to write about your ideal self as far as how you would like to see yourself at the end of the coming year.

She suggests that you also write about an Alternate Future Self (A future you are likely to face if you do not do anything toward reaching new goals. This represents a goal-framing effect – you are more likely to take action when you are confronted with the possible consequences of not doing so.