Hindsight, The Other Side of Foresight

Dear lovely people,

Merriam-Webster.com defines hindsight as “the knowledge and understanding that you have about an event only after it has happened.” Foresight is “the ability to see what will or might happen in the future.” Hindsight is more reactive, while foresight is more proactive, and both are important.

We all say it multiple times in our life, why is this happening to me? You get jolted some times by the things that come at you. You lose your job. You’re in a serious car crash. The list continues. There are thousands upon thousands of reasons, some large and some small, that make people utter the phrase: Why me?

What I know is that it’s not all as simple as a roll of the dice and your turn for tragedy. In the pulls and drags of life’s road, there’s a great orchestrator with a divine hand that brings unexpected beauty out of even life’s most difficult situations. The young lady who failed the entrance examination into the school of medicine, lands a full scholarship months later. The man who loses his job spends time with the congregational choir after years absences and soon meets a fellow meets a fellow member – his future business partner. The man in the car crash is rushed to the hospital and put into surgery. While under the knife, the plane he was rushing to catch crashes into the Alps. The wreck that nearly took his life is now the wreck that saved him. 

At some point, we must accept that the world in which we live and work is changing and a combination between innovation and technology is the major driving force behind that. The speed of change is only going to accelerate so buckle up you’re in for a bumpy ride. When it comes to the quest for success, having expertise and knowledge is no longer enough, ­ you have to combine that with going the extra-mile. Something that sets you out from the rest, the thing that makes sure your clients and partners don’t feel like you don’t care at all. 

Hindsight is when you look at your performance towards your goals at the end of a given time and be honest to tell yourself you didn’t hit your goal. There is no way you can influence what has already happen, but there is great value in determining what did happen and figuring out why it happened. Achievers learn from their mistakes and from their successes too.

Foresight on the other hand is about staying proactive with your goals. You have a short-term goal for next five months and you worked backwards from the goal to find out exactly what you need to reach it. Two months into the period, you find that you’re behind pace with your strategy. Foresight tells you that if things don’t change, you may not hit your goal so you get to predict what may happen and make adjustments so it does not become reality.

Some of the times, being accessible to friends, staff and family is important, but you also need to block off time when you can focus, be more productive and not experience interruptions. Studies show that when you are interrupted, it takes a few minutes to focus on the new issue, and it takes another few minutes to switch back to what you were originally working on. It takes foresight to see that wasting all this time becomes a problem. It may detract from your productivity, so don’t let it happen. 

It takes both hindsight and foresight to work at achieving your goals such as operate a good, profitable business. Analyze past information for trends and insights. Learn from what has worked and what hasn’t. Look to the future, be proactive and make the necessary adjustments as your months unfolds to enjoy more success.