Recently, I overheard someone saying that “knowledge involves the past, and imagination involves the future.” Similarly, being nice is an act that serves today, while being kind is action for the future. 

The net of these lessons: imagination and kindness can create what you hope for in your life and health and relationships. 

Remember: self-kindness is no different than being kind to others. You can evoke a sense of self-kindness in simple ways like saying “no” or observing a moment. 

Likewise, when you’re imagining a hopeful future, you’ll probably have feelings that range from blissful to doubt. When feelings are closer to doubt there may be “stinkin-thinkin.” Playful activities, such as drawing, can intentionally get out of that line of thought. 

Follow the steps to draw your past, present, and future as growth-rings of a tree: 

Your past

1. Draw a series of circles that expand out with the smallest in the center. (Figure 1.)

2. Write in the center your values. 

3. Write in the spaces between the situations/experiences through your life that were formative.

Your present

1. Draw lines from the center to the outer edge to divide the whole into five sections.

2. Label the five slices in the white space surrounding the circles: care, pace, learn, relate, purpose. Each takes account of your whole-self or the whole of your actionable performances. (Figure 2.)

3. Read the five practices under each label. Consider current actions within each then self-rate on a 1 (least) to 20 (greatest) scale the quality of each actionable practice. (refer to Figure 3 or link here to a PDF.)

4. Once you complete your ratings, add the groups of five separately to have five sums for each of the five labels/performances.

Your future

1. Draw another outer ring.  (Figure 4.)

2. Write in that space an imagined, future accomplishment. 

Look at your growth-rings and answer the following questions:

1. How do your past situations and experiences tell your story of resiliency? 

2. How is your strongest (highest sum) actionable performance(s) helping you build your future accomplishment? Imagine what that involves. Imagine how that might take shape. 

3. Which of the five actionable performances might need to change? Choose one practice within that group. Imagine what that change involves. Imagine how that practice will help you.

The more self-kind, precision of detail, and frequently you exercise imagining your hopeful future, the more likely you’ll seek ways to prioritize action.