Let’s say you now have a spectacular vision. In glorious detail,
you know what inspiring outcome you want to create in the universe.
Your glowing destination is shining on a peak. You know where you
want to go. You’re eager to get there, you can’t wait to start
your journey, and you look down to take your first steps and there’s
a huge gap in front of your feet. You don’t know what to do next.

Here’s one way to bridge the gap, adapted from Mark Joyner’s
explanation in his Simpleology course. He calls it the Backwards
Planner. The idea is that you start from your ending point, and
think, in order, of the action that must happen just before the end,
and then just before that.

You may have used a similar process to serve Thanksgiving dinner.
Everything needs to be ready at 2 pm, so you plan backwards,
calculating that the table must be set by 1:30, the rolls must come
out of the oven at 1:45, so they must go in at 1:20, the turkey
needs to come out at 1:35, to allow for cooling and carving, so it
must go in at 7:35, and so on.

Here’s where it pays to have a detailed version of your outcome. If
you know how many people you will serve, you can easily choose
the size of your turkey. If you’ve already chosen all your
side-dishes, you can gather recipes and ingredients for all of
them, and determine how long each will take. If, on the other hand,
you have no idea how many people will show up, and you want some
side dishes, but you don’t know what exactly, then every step you
try to plan will be complicated by contingencies and slowed by the
need to make extra decisions. Get the vision first.

Let’s imagine something on a grander scale. Suppose your vision is
to safely land three men and three women on Mars. Here, in broad
outline, is how you might use backward planning to get them there.

The last action before they land on Mars is to brake through the
atmosphere to slow their descent. So we need to equip their
lander with a braking system. We’d like it to be a powered descent
so that the pilot can control it from within, so we choose a rocket
engine for vertical landing.

The last thing before that is to travel the distance between Earth
and Mars. We decide to use similar rockets to lift off from Earth,
accelerate and decelerate along the way, and for attitude adjustment
as needed. The crew will need to breathe, eat, drink, sleep, and
have mental relief for journey. So we calculate the requirements
for life support and activities along the way. How many calories?
How much oxygen? How much water? What entertainments? What can be
recycled? How will we control temperature? How much will all this
weigh, and therefore, how much fuel will we need?

Before that, we need to launch the vehicle. Before that, we need
to train the crew. Before that, we need to build the spacecraft.
Before that, we need to design it. Before that, we need to fund it.
Before that, we need the vision for the project.

When you carry out the backwards planning in detail, you create a
roadmap that is easy to follow. Backwards planning works for
anything that has been done before.

And if you are creating something new? Next issue, I’ll discuss a
tool for that.

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Book Recommendation

Beholder’s Eye by Julie Czerneda

Esen is the youngest of a family of five — the only individuals she
knows of her species. She, her mother, and her sisters, can all
assume the form of any sentient they have tasted. They keep their
true nature from all but each other, to protect themselves from the
paranoia of more numerous species. But when an enemy who already
knows their secret begins hunting them, the strategies of the rest
of her family fail to keep them alive. Esen has only one small
talent that was hers alone. Can friendship succeed where art,
finance, and war have failed?

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Anna Paradox is a life coach who speaks science fiction. Her
clients invest in themselves to achieve their dreams. If you’d like
to join them, call 505-640-0979 to set up a sample session. Or
email me at anna@annaparadox.com

Creating Space is her twice-monthly newsletter with tips, insights,
and a book recommendation for science fiction fans and space
activists. You can subscribe at www.annaparadox.com/newsletter,
and read back issues there, too.