Hey everyone, good morning and welcome to the Increase Your Impact podcast. I'm Justin Sua. Today we are

talking about backcasting and premortems. The mind is a powerful weapon and it could be used for or against

you. I want to introduce you to two mental tools that you can use to set your future self up for

success, backcasting and premortems.

Backcasting is simply reverse engineering success. This exercise requires you to consider what the best

version of you looks like one year from now. Imagine every aspect of your life running on all

cylinders. Then ask yourself, what do I need to start doing?

What do I need to stop doing? And what do I need to keep doing in order to get close to that

version of myself in one year? Doing this exercise creates a blueprint in your mind of what

success looks like or what the process

looks like leading to success. It activates the visual cortex of the brain and it allows you to

see yourself from a different perspective. The second tool is a premortem. This is the complete

opposite of backcasting. Conducting the

premortem is reverse engineering failure. This exercise requires you to consider yourself

a complete failure a year from now and then spending time to think about what would lead to that

outcome. Doing this causes you to examine things that you need to avoid,

weaknesses you need to work on, inevitable obstacles you need to prepare for, and plan for how you're going to choose to respond to those unexpected problems. Mike Tyson, the famous philosopher and Boxer says everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Backcasting and conducting premortems will help you build towards the best version of yourself.

And at the same time, will help you prepare for the worst case scenario.

So my question to you is, I want you to give these two mental tools a try and see what you come up with.

What does it look like when you backcast, when you experience, you think about success a year from now and go backwards,

and then try the exercise on the premortem.

...