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Journey to the Horizon
A new look at an old idea about an entirely new world.
©2014 by Craig R. Lang, MS CHt
Late in the evening, at the end of a long day, I often curl up on the
couch of my rec room, a cup of herbal tea in one hand and the TV remote in the
other. The TV in the rec room usually toggles between the Science channel and
the History channel, and on this evening, the Science channel won. The show
playing was "We Are Not Alone", a documentary on extraterrestrial
life, the planet hunters and other areas at the leading edge of astrobiology.
Then, during commercials, I toggled back to the History channel, which
was showing the latest episode of Ancient Aliens. Each show tickled my
imagination in its own, very different way. But over the course of that hour, I
realized that what each had in common was that feeling of reaching beyond -
somehow peering over the horizon into that world beyond what we can physically
experience at this instant.
Each day, we are surrounded by the daily challenges of life. For some
of us, there are tremendous rewards and life is good. For others of us the
desire to change is powerful. Somehow the fit between self and life isn't quite
there. Whether or not you are comfortable with where you are now, most of us
have a dream of some sort. Maybe it's a small change - buying that cabin up
north, taking a Caribbean cruise, or whatever your goal might be. But what if
you could look even beyond that?
What if you could dream the impossible dream? If you could completely
remake your life, your work, your home, how you play and who you are with, what
would you do? What if you could reach beyond the horizon to a world beyond what
you know today? Would you want to?
If not, great. This article is not for you. But if you do, I would like
to introduce you to a new approach, something to guide you toward your dream,
one step at a time.
This new approach is really nothing new at all. It is based upon a
process described nearly twenty years ago, called the New Horizon Methodology.
It was developed in the mid 1990s at NASA (called the Horizon Mission
Methodology or HMM) as a technique to explore and develop new ideas for
traveling to the stars (predictably, that has great appeal to someone like me),
and other leaps forward in space travel and technology. Subsequently, the HMM
was adapted to business, career and life planning, and relabeled the New
Horizon process.
For me, the idea of reaching beyond the horizon always has tremendous
appeal, and so I decided to explore this process further. Envisioning a world
of the future, it is easily followed to develop that vision in detail, and then
to envision ways to reach it from the present day. Yet that last step is the
challenge - and this is where HMM most excels.
The New Horizon process is nicely described in the seminal 1998 paper
by John L. Anderson of NASA, entitled "On Creating New Horizons."
This describes multiple steps to reach beyond the world of today and envision
the world of tomorrow - and how to make that world happen.
Einstein is quoted as saying "No problem can be solved from the
same level of consciousness that created it." To go beyond what is
possible today, we need to transcend the ways of today. We need to move beyond
today's ways of thinking, to change paradigms - our implicit models and
assumptions about the world that provide the lens through which we interpret
reality. So the first step in the New Horizon process is exactly that - we move
beyond the known. Allowing our minds to move beyond what we know today, we take
a mental journey beyond the horizon.
Forgetting any limiting factors, beliefs or fears, let your imagination
roam. What would your life be like if you could fully achieve your dream?
Moving beyond what seems possible today, what would that desired world be like?
What would you want to see, feel, experience in this world beyond the horizon?
Allow your mind to wander and let that "impossible" world form within
your mind, as we begin the first step of the process
Step 1) Envision your mind-blowing future
Allow your mind to wander to that time beyond your present horizon.
Imagine that you have achieved that impossible dream. Let this world be
something that is beyond your present paradigm. Include in it some of the
"impossibilities" that confront you today. Imagine you have fully
transformed to a world where these are possible and have indeed been done. Let
your thinking shift to that new way, that new paradigm beyond the horizon.
Let your horizon vision form in your mind. Focus on your emotions,
intuition, spirit. What is your dream? What is your passion, your purpose? What
are you doing? Where are you doing it? What is motivating you to do what you
are doing? What emotions arise within you as you move through time within this
new world? Finally, what aspects of this new horizon world are so appealing
that you came to this place/time?
Let this vision gel in your mind until you can almost feel it, letting
it become a momentary "reality" for you. When you can feel this
future reality, however "Impossible" it might be, you are ready for
step two.
Step 2) Define the horizon vision in detail
Here we move from the emotional/spiritual and conceptual level to one
of more definition. Looking at life in your new horizon world, allow the vision
to resolve into more detail – building that future reality. What makes your new
world tick? What do you do for work, for play? Where do you live?
Imagine yourself at a few places/times within your new world. Where do
you work, live, play? Are you indoors or outdoors? Is your work or play
physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or a combination of these? Do you travel
or remain in one place? What do you work with? What is your work or play-place
like?
Perhaps you can also imagine who you might share this world with. What
are your relationships here/now in this new world? Who do you work with, play
with, live with? How does your work, play, home and/or family time
inter-relate?
Finally, let's imagine the degree of abundance and/or resources in your
new world. What does your life look like financially and how does your work
and/or play relate to this? Are you comfortable with life or are you seeking something?
What about this horizon world makes it ideal for you?
When you have developed your vision in detail, sensing, feeling and
understanding more about the details, then you are ready for the next step.
Step 3) Elements of the Horizon
In this third step, we examine the horizon world in increasing detail.
We look at the most extraordinary elements, the "impossibilities" of
this new world and identify what they are. What elements are the most novel and
breakthrough? What do you do now that you didn’t do before? What about them
seemed impossible and what made them seem impossible?
Note whatever is important about these challenges. These
"impossibilities" are the fundamental changes, the paths that lead
from the old "present day" world, to the new horizon world. When you
have identified these, you are ready for step four.
Step 4) Path(s) to the horizon
In step four, we look back along the path(s) that carried us from the
old present-day world into the new world of the horizon. Looking back from your
horizon world, observe the most important paths that brought you to your
horizon world. What were the changes that you made along the path? How were
they impossible and what did you do to turn those impossibilities into
possibilities, then into accomplishments. Which paths were the most important?
On each path, what obstacles did you need to overcome? What
impossibilities did you need to turn into possibilities? What changes did you
need to make to yourself, your life? What new capabilities, skills or lessons
did you need to acquire? What tools/materials/resources did you need to
acquire? What aspects of your old life did you need to leave behind?
When you have found some of these, you can ask what steps you took
along the path(s) to get to your new world? This leads us to the fifth and
final step of the process, identifying the steps along the path and how to
achieve them.
Step 5) First steps on the path
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" and
so it is on the way to our new horizon world. So in the final step, we return
to the present and look at the paths we have identified in the previous step.
Which of these paths is the most important? How does the path begin?
What do you need to do to begin that first step? What do you need to learn,
understand, research, discover about the step(s) you have identified? What
changes do you need to make? What accomplishments do you need to achieve? What
can and/or will you do today to begin the process?
From the final step, you will want to determine objectives and action
items to begin the process. What is the next thing you will do? What will be
the expected result? How long will it take? And finally, how will you know when
you are done?
Now that you have identified some concrete first steps you can do to
travel down that path to your horizon world, you need to keep yourself on that
path.
Follow-up Steps)
Another quote, this one from the great American philosopher Yogi Berra
says that "if you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace
else." These words of wisdom warn us – once we have the road in sight, we
need to stay on track.
To keep yourself on task, it is best to have another person, perhaps a
partner, coach, teacher, mentor, etc. Working with that other person, set a
time to review your progress. What are the results? Have you achieved what you
planned to achieve? What needs to change about your objective? What additional
resources are needed? What is the next objective? Does the objective match with
the overall path? Is the overall path still the same, or does it need to
change?
Don't worry if you don't get one of the steps done completely before
moving on to the next step. This entire process can be repeated and revisited
at any time. However, it is best to keep some discipline behind it - it is easy
to get stuck at a wayside along that path - or to get onto another path altogether
that leads somewhere else. Over time, you can imagine your path moving beyond
the known, toward the horizon and then, one day traveling beyond the edge, into
your new world.
I invite you to try out this process, letting it guide you into the
dream. And if you, like me, want to one day travel to the stars, well, we will have
to take quite a few more steps on our Journey to the Horizon.
