Making predictions

If you are going to make a prediction, you are saying, “I think the future will look like this.”

Of course, no one knows what will happen. This means that we need to accept that sometimes we are wrong.

But that’s not something that is tolerated well in the culture. Being wrong signals that someone else is right. Being wrong usually results in a loss of status. Being wrong can hurt our internal narrative (and poke at our shame).

So, really, the thing we need to dance with isn’t the prediction itself—it’s what we are going to do with the result. Because if we are going to keep predicting a future that isn’t realized yet, we also need to deal with the tension of when it isn’t how we envisioned it.