Recently the DIS students from the course Sustainable Development in Northern Europe participated in our workshop on Futurization: Creating the Space for the Future.

We looked into the images of our own personal future and those of the global future. There was a stark difference between the two – personal future being much more positive and global future images were mostly negative. Similarly to my earlier research results presented at the TEDx Vilvoorde.

We looked into the common challenges associated with futurization:

• lack of future discourse – no future language, absence of a tool to talk about it, except for concepts like ‘pension’ or ‘mortgage’ (are those effective?);
• lack of our cognitive capacity to imagine long-term future;
• images of the global future can be very scary, anxiety-provoking, or leave us feeling hopeless;
• our defense mechanisms protect us from such emotions, but also make us shortsighted.

We looked at our difficult emotions, but have also looked at what can actually be done by us in the context of the current situation. We talked about the importance of knowing our own values and how to develop personal strengths supporting them. 

Creating a safe space for expressing the emotions, imaginaries, hopes, and, most importantly, fears associated with the future and ‘futurization’, allowed for more productive ideas and solutions to emerge among the participants.

Finally, we looked into the ideal future, a combination of personal and global images, by visualizing it. Creating and discussing collages were valuable tools that helped the students to realize their thoughts about the future and to find what can support them in developing strategies for a better future. 

As a result, students shared how they can keep the positive side of looking at their personal and global future and the importance of making change individually on a small scale.

We look forward to seeing how our workshop will inspire our young participants to create more sustainable personal and global futures.

If you are interested in self-development, learning more about personal and global future, and sustainable development – join our future workshops or reach out for a tailor-made workshop that fits your organization, class, or group’s needs.