Envision a world gripped by a global pandemic triggered by a novel respiratory virus, spreading rapidly across continents. Looking back on the COVID-19 pandemic from today’s perspective, this scenario doesn’t seem far-fetched. However, cast your mind back to 2008. What if you were asked to conjure such a reality then?
This is precisely what Jane McGonigal, a futurist and game designer, undertook. In 2008, she tasked nearly 10,000 individuals worldwide to transport themselves 11 years into the future—Fall 2019—imagining a pandemic stemming from a respiratory virus, sweeping the globe. How would they adapt their daily routines? What challenges would they encounter in their lives? How would they respond to government-mandated quarantines? This imaginative exercise is known as episodic future thinking (EFT), a form of mental simulation. The objective was to map out potential economic, social, political, and emotional ramifications of global threats. Fast-forward to the actual COVID-19 pandemic—a reality, not a simulation. Strikingly, people’s authentic behaviors and emotional reactions closely mirrored the simulation’s predictions from a dozen years prior.
This was not mere luck. In 2010, McGonigal conducted another simulation involving around 20,000 participants, asking them to envision themselves in 2020. The scenario included not just a respiratory virus pandemic, but also the proliferation of conspiracy theories, misinformation through social media, and climate change-induced extreme events like West Coast wildfires and power grid collapses. Sound familiar?
Yet, McGonigal argues that the foremost purpose of such simulations isn’t accurate fortune-telling; it’s about “preparing our minds and stretching our collective imagination, so we are more flexible, adaptable, agile, and resilient when the ‘unthinkable’ happens.” Training our imagination through EFT, in addition to enhancing our ability to anticipate possibilities, yields unexpected rewards. It fortifies mental well-being, preserves cognitive capacities, bolsters motivation, and amplifies creativity.
Numerous studies attest that individuals who exercise their imagination toward specific future scenarios tend to be not only more optimistic but also less susceptible to anxiety or depression. Why? Imagination is the catalyst for envisioning a brighter tomorrow. Practicing EFT empowers us to guide and channel our imagination—neither too vague (associated with depression) nor excessively intense (linked to anxiety). Beyond enhancing mental health, honing our capability to vividly visualize the future yields cognitive advantages. Diminished episodic thinking is linked to conditions like dementia, traumatic brain injuries, and post-traumatic stress, spurring its use in clinical settings. Moreover, dedicating time to vividly imagine our future bolsters motivation to undertake present actions with long-term benefits—a concept discussed earlier. Lastly, studies demonstrate that individuals who project themselves into future scenarios excel in subsequent creativity assessments.
In essence, nurturing our imagination equips us to weather future upheavals while heightening present creativity—a combination of attributes that molds us into superior, more adept human leaders. This practice allocates space for our “right brain,” associated with intuition, creativity, and emotions, to flourish. This, figuratively speaking, allows it to generate solutions seemingly from thin air.
Our imagination stands as our most potent instrument for change. When wielded adeptly, it elucidates our priorities, true identity, and potential, informing our leadership approach. By connecting us with our motivations and desired leadership style, this facet of the mind serves as both compass and driving force, ensuring we stay on course amid challenges. This endeavor, offering health benefits as well, prepares us to navigate an unpredictable future. In Chapter 11, we’ll explore how this cognitive exercise reshapes our connections with others, central to human leadership.
Nonetheless, vision without action remains mere daydreaming. With a well-defined vision of the kind of leader you aspire to be, the time has come to transform this vision into reality.