Engineering Leaders

Do you ever catch yourself fantasizing about the future? I do it all the time! What my home will look and feel like, what my interactions with people will be like, what my family will be like, and who I will be.

Well folks, the future is now. I realized that by sitting here fantasizing about my future life, I’m not getting any closer to it. Instead, I can get off my duff and find ways to bring in parts of it to my present life. Here’s an example.

I have always imagined that my future dream house would have a nice deck with those wooden wind chimes that will sway gracefully in the timeless breeze. I was in Hawaii recently and I and saw the wind chimes at a flea market. My first thought was “oh, I’ll have some just like that when I have my dream house”. Then it hit me - I don’t need to wait until I have my dream house to have wind chimes! The future is now, and I will get the same sensation from the wind chimes being in my apartment as I would from them being in my dream house. It’s the feeling I’m after, and that doesn’t have to wait.

There’s no magic wand that will be waved when you turn a certain age saying: here, now you can have everything you’ve dreamed of. You create it, bit by bit, day by day.

Three Steps to Your Future Life Now
1. Identify an aspect to your future fantasy life that you are holding out for.
2. Identify what feeling it will bring you.
3. Find a way to get that feeling NOW. It might mean bringing that future aspect into your life now instead of waiting, or it might mean finding some other way to get the same feeling.

Welcome to Engineering Leaders, the new blog from Vision, Goal, Action. Coaching!

This is a blog for engineers and other technical professionals interested in authentic leadership and personal growth. I hope that you, as an engineer or other type of technical professional, find good, fun, and relevant information about real leadership.

If you’re wondering what I mean by “real leadership” then stay tuned … it will unfold over the weeks and months to come. I know what I mean, but it will take awhile to explain and is open for discussion. Let’s just say that leadership is not ‘making people do what you want them to do’, but rather inspiring people to focus on a common purpose. How to do this is the lenghty part.

The invitation is always open to let me know how I can serve you better in this forum. Let’s keep the dialogue open.

Looking forward,
Elizabeth J. Agnew, MS, PE
Leadership Development Coach
Vision, Goal, Action. Coaching