Making Decisions About The Future

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Forecasts and projections come with the territory, regardless of whether we’re speaking to business, social or political subjects. From new industries to climate change to our own companies, we’re desperate to know what the future holds.    

What’s the potential? How long do we have? How serious is this?

And there’s no shortage of ‘experts’ prognosticating on that future. And, no surprise, not all of them agree - in fact, many well educated, reasonably well informed individuals will hold completely divergent points of view. And they all believe they’re right. 

So, what that means is, that it’s down to us. We need to make up our own minds. And, to me, there are two parts to how we make our decision.

The first, of course, is to do our work - do our own research, study the available data, develop our own analysis. This is foundational. I know that goes without saying, but it’s worth another mention - because oftentimes we believe we have enough knowledge or experience or ‘we’ve seen it all before’. It’s always worth collecting and revisiting the actual facts on the ground. What does the data actually tell us?

As we then answer that question, we have 3 choices as to how we filter our interpretation.

We can be optimistic - believing that we have a path forward, that the obstacles presented can and will be overcome.

We can be realists, choosing to see the world where it actually is, and taking some middle ground, letting things play out as they will.

Or we can be pessimists, looking at the inevitable problems that could arise, the obstacles we face and the difficulty of betting there.  

This last one is, to me, the problem. It’s an easy one to fall into - plenty of folks will tell you why things won’t work. Heck, we’ll even tell ourselves that. To not take on a challenge is an easy answer. It absolves us of responsibility, we don’t need to put ourselves out there. 

But to be pessimistic is more than that. It’s also an admission of a lack of faith in our ability to be creative, to achieve and get things done. Pessimism, it seems to me, is an unjustified indictment of our own potential. We don’t believe.  

The better path is optimism. Not an “at all costs” version of it - sometimes, the data isn’t good and the outcomes are inevitable.

But where there are real options - difficult ones, yes - but real options? The path forward can only be ones of optimism.