Decoding Tomorrow:
Futurism and Foresights Today

Happy new year all personal development funksters!

I am sitting in a cafe in Stockholm, Sweden and contemplating my wonderful three weeks in this country up north. Going back home, away from home in Australia provides a lot of insight, understanding, and profound realisations. Have you ever experienced that you gain new perspectives when you go away on holidays, or even just away to the coast or countryside for a weekend?

Today is the 3rd of January and I am just about to grab my Moleskin diary and to continue a tradition I began a few years ago - that of keeping an 'attitude of gratitude tab' around New Years' Eve. The process works like this - you simply write down all of the things in 2006 that you are grateful for, the things you are proud of, the special people that are in your life, and the important lessons you learnt in 2006. Make sure they are empowering lessons.

The other night I sat up and watched 'Batman Begins' - a great movie and high on my list of recommendations. As Batman grew up, his dad Mr Wayne taught him that the reason we fall down 'is so that we learn to get up again'. This becomes something of a mantra and I think it is a great example how we are the observers of meaning, that we truly possess 'the eye of the beholder' - our perspectives are what gives our experiences meaning. Now, this exercise is a great way of checking how far we have come since the previous year, and gratitude allows us to feel rich, fulfilled and actually faciliates new and brilliant experiences.

The exercise is key to achievement - but not only to blind, ungrateful achievement that is materialistic, but a much deeper, spiritual quest for the universe's boundless beauty and storage of wonderful and mysterious surprises. I encourage all of you to take 30 minutes to an hour and go through this process. Once you have completed it, it is time to have a good think about what you want out of 2007. Goal-setting and goal-getting is so much easier once we have looked back towards the past with fresh and grateful perspectives. When we let the past become a storehouse of wisdom and a positive reference point for the future, we become empowered to truly achieve the things we want to achieve, meet the people we want to meet, and taste the special spices that life has to offer.

We sometimes get caught up in the daily grind and forget to take a moment out to ourselves. The festive season usually provides a few moments when we can reflect - trust me it is a great investment in yourself and will reap dividends for you.

Tomorrow I am off to Chamonix, France for a weeks skiing. I am staying with a good friend in Geneva and then off to the slopes, which I have been told are now filled with great powder snow. I am looking forward to posting some pics on the blog - hopefully while I am standing on the skis and not laying with my face planted in the snow. :)

Until then, all the best for the new year. I am in the process of writing up a New Year Resolutions guide that I will post here on the blog as well as make available via the Thinque-zine so make sure you sign-up for your free copy on the home-page .

All the best and catch you soon

Anders

PS. Taking in new inspiration from Tom Peters with my brother in Sweden during Christmas 2006.