A 10 Minute Exercise That Changed My Life

The single most useful thing I’ve ever done is Debbie Millman’s 10 year life plan exercise.

The premise is simple: imagine what your life could be 10 years from now if you could do anything you wanted.

Establishing direction lets you reverse-engineer how to get there.
Reveals what’s important to you that you otherwise may not have known.
Helps eliminate all the noise (you’re probably spending ~90 % of your time on things that don’t move you toward that goal).
It’s pretty fun (yes, it is mental masturbation—that’s why we limit it to 10 minutes).

Remove all restrictions.
If money and status didn’t exist, would it change?
If you weren’t afraid of other people’s opinions, would it change?
Do you think it’ll make you happy? (Pretty loaded word, but however you’d define it.)
Go into as much detail as you’d like.
Keep writing until you have nothing else to write.

Describe what a day in your life looks like in your dream 10 years from now:

What are you doing?
Where are you living?
Who are you living with?
What kind of house are you in? Apartment? City? Country?
What does your furniture look like? What is your bed like? What are your sheets like?
What kind of clothes do you wear? What kind of hair do you have?
Tell me about your pets. Tell me about your significant other.
Do you have children? A car? A boat?
Talk about your career.
What do you want? What are you reading? What are you making?
What excites you? What is your health like?
Start from the minute you wake up—brush your teeth, have your coffee or tea—all the way through until you tuck yourself in at night.
What is that day like for you? Dream big!
Dream without any fear. Write it all down. You don’t have to share it with anyone except yourself.

And then, read it once a year—and see what happens.

You have delusional self-belief that it will happen (examples: Kanye West, Marie Curie, Michael Jordan, Max Verstappen, Serena Williams).
You slowly build a list of undeniable evidence that convinces you it will.

I revisit mine every month or so, and think to myself, “What can I do to move myself closer to that goal, and what can I eliminate?”

Treat this like your life depends on it, because it does.