Did you know that you can predict the future? In this article I'm going to challenge you to predict the future by fully utilizing your existing mental capabilities.

Let’s start with an exercise. Wherever you are, whatever you are doing (presumably reading this article!), you can do this exercise - it will only take 30 seconds. Choose a small object nearby - something like a pen or a business card. Don’t make the item too large or heavy. In a moment I’m going to ask you to focus on the object and to concentrate on levitating the object about two inches above where it is sitting. Now before you think „what the heck is this about“ let me tell you that I’ve tried this experiment with many different groups of people and it has always worked.

One more thing - before you start the exercise I want you to think about what it is that you expect to see - predict what you will see. When you focus on levitating the object, what will happen?

All right, go ahead. Concentrate on levitating the object as you slowly read the words in the next few phrases, and watch the object out of the corner of your eye. Begin... concentrate... focus on levitating the object... two inches above where it is sitting... a little longer ... not too high, you don’t want the object flying around the room... almost done... all right, you can relax.

Now I’m not there with you so I don’t know if this demonstration worked, but I have never seen it fail. Did your object stay planted firmly where it was sitting? Then the demonstration worked. (If not, you may have a whole new career ahead of you!)

Now think about what it is that you predicted would happen. Did you predict that the object would stay sitting on the table? If you did, what did you use to predict that? Maybe a combination of experience and your knowledge of physics.

If you predicted that the object would levitate what information did you use to make that prediction? You were likely influenced by me implying that the object would levitate if you concentrated on it.

Or maybe you thought that the object would probably stay still but kind of hoped that maybe it would actually levitate. After all that would be cool, wouldn’t it - if you could levitate the object? And the reality is that you can’t.

Predicting the future is something we do every minute of every day. We predict the sun will rise every morning. We predict our car will start or that the bus will come to pick us up to go to work. But how often when we think about the future, when we predict what will happen, do we ignore the facts? Maybe our car isn’t that reliable, and the odds are high that it won’t start because we don’t maintain it properly. Do we hope that a project at work is going to go away, when we know that the only way it will go away is if we do something about it?

How often do we wish something would happen that is outside the realm of reality, that violates cause and effect? Do we dream that a new client or a new job will just drop into our laps, without our doing anything to attract it? Do we wait for external events to create the future we are hoping for? For example, is there someone we’d like to talk with - but we don’t take the initiative to pick up the phone? Certainly there is a possibility they may phone us, but it is far more likely we’ll speak if we call.

Why do we do this? Why do we often ignore reality? There can be many reasons – we may not want to acknowledge that we have a problem that we didn’t anticipate or we don’t think we can solve; we may not want to be a bearer of bad news; we may not want to do the work to address the issue.

But reality will always intrude. Predicting the future is about realistically projecting your knowledge and past experience into the future. Sometimes we may not have enough knowledge or experience to predict the future, but we should be able to anticipate the future.

Make sure you fully use your mental capacity. Constantly check your thinking - are there areas where you are in fantasy right now? Remember, the best basis on which to predict the future is reality.