Future Projecting into the new year

As we head into a New Year, it’s pretty typical for people to think about goals or intentions that they want to set for the coming year, but it’s also a great time to look back at what you have accomplished in the prior year. 

So many of us in this “hustling for my worth” kind of culture are always looking ahead at the next thing, so much so that we forget to stop and turn around and look back and see how much we’ve accomplished. In the past year, how have you grown personally, professionally, emotionally, spiritually? 

Before you think about heading into the New Year, I just want to invite you to give yourself a pat on the back for the things that you have done, or the things that you’ve stopped doing that didn’t serve you. And in this time when it has been so challenging, with daily stressors and chaos and crisis all over the planet, just getting through this past year in one piece has been a major accomplishment.

So, well done, you!

Future Projection

Since it is a time where people often look forward, I wanted to talk about a really effective technique that we use in psychodrama called future projection. The name is pretty self-explanatory. We are projecting into the future. 

But rather than just thinking about that future or talking about it, we do it in action, like everything else in psychodrama. Typically, the way future projection is done is that we find a spot in the room that represents the present moment, and stand or sit there, and name the intention or goal that we want to move towards.

And then we look forward to a place in the room – that could be using a chair, or you can sit on the floor, or you can stand, whatever feels right. We look to that place in the room that represents the future, and then mark that future place with scarves or props of some kind; something that is going to best represent what that looks like and feels like.

Now, it’s totally up to the protagonist – the person whose exploration we’re doing – to decide how far into the future we’re going. It could be a month, it could be five years. You place something or a number of things in that future place as the protagonist, and then the director will invite you to reverse roles into that place.

So if I were doing this for June of 2026, I could stand or sit in the location that represents that future place. And then the psychodrama director – the person who’s running the particular session – can interview me in that place. And as always in psychodrama, we speak as though we are in that moment.

We do that because it allows us to have a felt sense of what that feels like, sounds like, looks like. Rather than talking about the future, we are in the future. Rather than talking from a place of, “I’m going to do this” or “I’m going to feel that,” I speak as though I am experiencing it in that future moment.

So I could start a sentence as the protagonist by saying, “It’s June of 2026 and what’s going on in my life today is…” and then fill in that blank. 

And so in my case, for example, using props and furniture, I could create that future place of sitting at a desk with a whole bunch of books in front of me, and then speak from that place. 

“It is June of 2026, and I am sitting here at a book signing for my new book. And I’m excited and a bit nervous about how it’s going to be received. I sure hope people like it, because it took me years to write it. I am feeling this huge accomplishment in my bones, and I’m also working really hard to get my inner critic to leave the room so that I can show up and not miss this moment.”

The director can then interview me by asking me more questions about how it feels to be sitting here, what it took to get here, what I might have had to prioritize in order to be here, etc. 

Your Future Self

And then one of my favorite parts about doing future projection is that from this future place, I can then speak to Jean in the present moment of December 2025, standing or sitting on the other side of the room. And I can tell her things like, “This is what you need to do to get here. Here are the people you need help from. Here are the priorities that you need to set. Here’s how to get here.”

Eventually, the director will then invite me to reverse roles back to Jean in 2025. And if I’m in a group, I can then choose someone to play Jean in June of 2026, and I can have what I said in that future place mirrored back to me, and then have a dialogue with my future self. 

So the person sitting in the role of Jean in June of 2026 will speak from that role – basically repeating what I said when I was there – and then I, in December of 2025, get to hear those messages, and respond.

I might then use props or scarves to lay a foundation of actions – a foundation of steps – that I can take to move forward towards that place, one small step at a time. And I can take one step forward on that path towards June of 2026, and I can speak from there about how it feels to be in that new place. For example, I could step in to January of 2026, and I can same something like, “One important step I’m taking is reaching out to colleagues that I respect who have already published books, to ask them how they chose a publisher.”

If I’m in an individual session, I can still experience the dialogue by role reversing back and forth between my present and future self, experiencing that dialogue, and charting a future path. 

This exercise can be done for anything: health goals, recovery goals, it can be done for work goals, spiritual goals, etc. It’s completely up to the protagonist. 

It’s important to note that in the future place, sometimes people don’t know the exact date. Sometimes the exercise is about feeling free from a certain behavior or free from a certain belief system, and as a director, I need to allow the protagonist to explore that without nailing them down to specifics.

For example, I’ve done this exercise many times with people who want to quit smoking or vaping. And when they go to that future place and they say, “I have five months off of cigarettes today,” they may not be able to tell me exactly what the date is. But by getting to experience that felt sense, it’s still planting the seed of change.

Felt Sense

So the beauty of this exercise is that again, I’m not just talking about my goals. I get to sit at that desk with my books on the table ready to sign them, ready to autograph them for people coming to the book signing, and have a full body sense of the experience. I get to feel what it took to get there, and feel what it’s like to be there, and that felt sense allows me to have much greater motivation to get there. 

Sometimes what we explore is an aspirational thing, where the protagonist has a clear idea of where they want to get to. Sometimes the protagonist can be that specific, but it can help them to rule out what they don’t want. Either way, it allows the protagonist to envision what that future could look like and feel like.

Even if you have no clue about how to get somewhere, by knowing that it’s possible through action, and by maybe just identifying that first step, it will give you the motivation to take it. It reminds me of that old story about having to drive 50 miles in the fog. 

You don’t have to see 50 miles ahead of you in order to get there: You only need to see as far as your headlights will allow you to see. And then you slowly keep driving forward, and eventually the fog lifts, and your vision gets clearer. You just need to keep moving.

Crossing the Threshold

So as we cross the threshold into a New Year, I would invite you to either stand in a space – or do this in your mind’s eye – and look back over the last year. Let yourself acknowledge all the things that you’ve done – or not done – to grow. Maybe it wasn’t about doing something – it was about NOT doing something. Maybe you set a boundary, and didn’t do what you used to do, which is a huge accomplishment.

Take a moment to acknowledge and honor yourself for the journey that you have been on, and give yourself a pat on the back. You might even, again, either actually doing it, or in your mind’s eye, say something to that self in January of 2025.

They had no idea how challenging this year was going to be. Make a statement to them; honor all that they have shifted and changes, and really take a moment to take that in. 

Now allow yourself to look to the future. See a vision, even if it’s just one step. And if you can, reverse roles in your mind’s eye – or go stand in that future spot – feel into how far into the future it is (if you have clarity about it), and just notice what it feels like. From there, you can make a statement to yourself in the present, to encourage yourself, and take into hope and/or excitement, or offer yourself some kernel that will help you to keep moving forward. 

Then reverse back to the present, receive that message from your future self, and let yourself get clear about what that first small, achievable step is on the path moving forward.

Happy New Year.

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About Jean:

Jean Campbell, LCSW, SEP, TTP, TEP has been bringing together groups of people to heal for over 30 years. She blends her extensive experience in psychodrama, sociometry, group psychotherapy, somatic healing and trauma resolution to offer training for helping professionals, personalized intensives, clinical consultation, and trial preparation consultation. You can find her at theactioninstitute.com, on Instagram at @actioninstitute, and on Facebook at @actioninstituteofcalifornia.