Timeline Legacy Process - Empower Your Decisions, Empower Yourself, Empower Your Life

Recap - This week's Self-Empowerment Videos:

Early this week I made a video introducing the notion of taking "The Path of Least Resistance" as a type of framework or Guiding Question you can ask yourself when you are making a decision or find yourself in a troublesome or challenging situation. As I finished that video I touched on the idea that decision-making becomes easier, more efficient and straightforward when we take stock of the broader context or circumstances that the decision will affect. Once you make a decision you then check the Ecology - you check if it is a realistic, viable and workable course of action given the practicalities and realities of daily life, existing commitments and the people in your life.

I then shot a follow-up video on making more powerful decisions by going through the Timeline Legacy Process, a Neuro-Linguistic Process, that is designed to help the person get clarity on where they see themselves in future years. You can do it yourself in the privacy of your home, and it may be easier and more powerful if you have a skilled NLP Life Coach who can take you through the process. 

Here it is in a nutshell:

Timeline Legacy Process - NLP Technique

You stand in a spot with enough space for you to take 4-6 steps forward (depending on the time increments you choose). You are facing the direction of your imagined future. You are standing in the current day (your 'today'). In other words, your future literally lies ahead of you.

1. You take a step forward and place yourself 5 years into the future. You are 5 years older; what is your life like? What work are you doing? Who is in your life? Where are you living? How do you feel? What have you accomplished as you had wished?
2. Take another step forward and imagine yourself 15 years in the future. You are 15 years into the future and you can ask yourself again what your life looks like, who you are with, what work you are doing or are you retired? What kind of an income do you have? Etc. 
3. Take another step forward and see yourself 25yrs older. You can ask the same questions and gauge where you are emotionally, mentally, physically, professionally and spiritually.
4. Finally, you will take a final step forward and this time you are moving into your post-death experience. This is after you have passed away and left your mark on the world.  
5. Turn around and look back on your life. You can close your eyes (or not) as you mentally re-run the events of your life that you just experienced on your timeline. 
6. What was your legacy? What was your contribution to the world? What mattered most? Which people mattered the most? What was the most important or valuable aspect(s) of your life experience? 
7. From that whole life experience what message would you like to send back to yourself to the you that is living in the current day (the day you are doing this exercise)? Once you identify that message, send it back to the you in the present day. 
8. Once you've sent the message you will walk back through your time i.e. going back in time. Ensure that you are taking steps back so that you are still facing your future yet walking backwards.
9. Once you reach the current day (today) you will once again be standing in the original position facing your future. Now you will receive the valuable message that the future you sent to the current you. Close your eyes and receive this message.
10. Once you are sure that your internal self has received and absorbed the message you can acknowledge this in a subtle way (rub hands together lightly, open your eyes, or nod your head) and you can continue with your day with this new knowledge you've received from the future.

 [Source: Thank you to Mindbridge NLP Trainings where I received my Life Coach and Master NLP Practitioner Certifications, and who taught me these modalities through their course materials and classes. It was an exceptional experience.]

 

Timeline (TL) Legacy Process - Elucidating Values

The Timeline process is designed to generate new ideas and clarity around the things that really matter to you in the long-term. This long-term perspective can help us identify, fine-tune and reconfirm our deeply-held values, or criteria. Values are the guiding stars of a person's behavior, attitudes and fundamental way of seeing the world. They serve as parameters for action (or inaction) and can certainly influence the meaning we ascribe to situations and experiences.

Since our Values shape our Identity, and our Identity is integral to a firm and secure sense of self, our confidence and place in the world (ego). 

Values and Identity are inextricably linked.

Thus, it is natural that we protect, defend and cherish our Values. We have seen this evidenced since the beginning of time when civilizations and individuals have defended their religion, independence, gender equality, racial non-discrimination, and suffrage (right to vote).

Living up to our Values reflects congruence, or internal alignment, generates more personal clarity, and reconfirms our identity (Who I am, What I do, What I believe). In other words, the world makes sense and you feel secure in your place in the world and life. Living your highest, deeply-held Values will ideally reflect you at your best and enable living the life you love.

Thus, supporting your Values with the corresponding actions, thoughts, ideas, people and situations will further boost levels of optimal living and personal satisfaction.

This is why congruence and internal alignment are key.

Once you've gone through the TL process and learned, discovered and/or reaffirmed your Values

you can better understand what really matters for you in your life; which activities, people and situations will benefit your overall happiness and reflect you at your best, and living optimally.

It allows you to live with more ease, wisdom and peace; You don't sweat the small stuff (and it's all small stuff?) and to envision Your bigger picture, the great things in store for you, and the amazing possibilities you can create for your future.

Thinking about the future can be frightening or intimidating to some of us, especially when you haven't thought this way before. Perhaps no one has asked you where you see yourself a few years down the line. Or you draw blanks when you try. Or you think that the Greater Powers of the Universe will decide how things play out and you don't have much say in the end.

Regardless of where you stand on this spectrum, going through the Timeline Process will definitely give you feedback you can work with; remember - there is no such thing as Failure only Feedback. You will have more self-awareness and once you begin the process you might find it exciting to discover that you can in fact design your future with your thoughts.


Have fun with it! Use your imagination and ask yourself some powerful, creative 'creation' questions:

- What would I like to see happen?
- You don't know the answer, but imagine if you did know, what would that be?
- If anything were possible what would you see happen?
- Where do you see yourself thriving the most?
- Do you know anyone who already has the life you respect or admire? Which qualities or aspects would you like to have in yours?
- What are you doing when you're at your best?
- Where do you see yourself most in love with life?

In Closing...

I hope you've found this beneficial and relevant. Life is fun, life is amazing, life is a miracle and we are all co-creators in this experience. There are such beautiful and magnificent possibilities before us if we can only envision them, imagine them and then see and feel ourselves attuned to those potentialities. We are only limited by our thinking (Zig Ziglar's Stinkin' Thinkin'); we are only limited by our imagination.

One of my next posts & videos will focus on another NLP process: Fun and Magic with the Reframe Technique.
Here is a taster...

Feeling Lonely? Let's Reframe that!

Comparing yourself to someone else/to others? Let's Reframe that!

Frustrated by your lack of progress? Let's reframe that!

Feeling stuck in a rut? Let's reframe that! 

Themes to explore: context of situations, all things being relative, things have meaning we choose to give them, and more.

Thanks and focus on empowering, resourceful thoughts. Life is a product of the quality of our thoughts.

-Jennifer (9 Apr 2015)