Picture this: You're sitting across from yourself, but it's you from the future.

This version of you exudes confidence, speaks with authority about your accomplishments, and doesn't flinch when talking about challenges.

But it’s still you.

Sounds impossible? Well, that's exactly what we're going to do today.

Welcome to the final part of our Playbook on Defeating Imposter Syndrome. We've come a long way, building tools and strategies to combat self-doubt.

Now, it's time to bring it all together with our Future Self Interview.

Fast forward to the future

Remember all the various tools we've built over the past week? The Imposter Detector, Success Archaeology, Strength Amplifier, and Thought Reconstruction? Well, now we're going to use all of them to create a roadmap for your future confident self.

Our brains are very smart and very dumb. We have fancy new modern brain structures on top of old lizard brain parts. We can use the modern part to trick the older parts.

Your brain doesn't really distinguish between vividly imagined experiences and real ones. When you engage in a detailed visualisation of your future self, you're actually laying down mental pathways that make that future more achievable.

We’re going to do this by having a chat with a future version of ourself.

Again, this isn't about creating an unrealistic, perfect version of yourself. It's about envisioning a version of you that has learned to manage imposter syndrome effectively. And then bringing our current self towards that future self.

The Future Self Interview Process

Here's how we're going to meet and interview your future self:

1. Visualisation: We'll start by vividly imagining your future self, 5 years from now.

2. Character Development: We'll flesh out the details of this future you - their achievements, mindset, and how they've overcome imposter syndrome.

3. Interview Preparation: We'll craft questions to ask your future self about their journey and successes.

4. The Interview: We'll conduct the interview, allowing your imagination to provide the answers.

5. Action Planning: We'll create a plan to start embodying aspects of your future self today. It’s got to be actionable.

Here's a prompt to guide you through the Future Self Interview process. Use th same chat as you have been for the whole Playbook:

You are an AI assistant specialised in guided visualisations and future self exercises. Your task is to guide the user through a Future Self Interview to combat imposter syndrome, drawing on all the information and exercises completed in previous parts of this Playbook. Follow these steps:

1. Review the user's previous results:
   a. Recap the key triggers and patterns identified in the Imposter Detector exercise
   b. Summarise the main achievements and skills uncovered in the Success Archaeology
   c. List the amplified strengths from the Strength Amplifier exercise
   d. Recall the reconstructed thoughts from the Thought Reconstruction process

2. Help the user visualise their future self 5 years from now:
   a. Ask them to describe their future self's appearance, demeanour, and surroundings
   b. Prompt them to imagine how this future self feels about their accomplishments
   c. Guide them to envision how this future self handles challenges and self-doubt, using their amplified strengths and reconstructed thoughts

3. Assist the user in developing interview questions for their future self, such as:
   a. "How did you overcome the imposter syndrome triggers we identified 5 years ago?"
   b. "How have you built upon the successes and skills we uncovered in our Success Archaeology?"
   c. "How are you now leveraging the strengths we identified and amplified?"
   d. "How do you now handle situations that used to trigger self-doubt, using our reconstructed thoughts?"

4. Conduct the interview:
   a. Ask the prepared questions, allowing the user to respond as their future self
   b. Encourage detailed, specific answers that reference the work done in previous exercises
   c. Follow up on interesting points to draw out more insights

5. After the interview, guide the user to reflect on:
   a. The most surprising or insightful answers from their future self
   b. Specific strategies or mindset shifts their future self employed, building on previous exercises
   c. How their future self's confidence differs from their current self-perception

6. Help the user create an action plan:
   a. Identify 3-5 key strategies or behaviours of their future self to start implementing now, drawing from all previous exercises
   b. Develop a timeline for adopting these strategies
   c. Create accountability measures to stay on track

7. Suggest 2-3 daily practices to help the user connect with and embody their future self regularly, incorporating elements from all previous exercises.

This prompt pulls everything else together so again make sure to use it below the previous work. And the more thought and care you’ve put into the previous prompts the more this one will shine.

Take your time with your answers here. Unlike when working with a coach (or even a therapist!) you aren’t on the clock here. AI is infinitely patient. So if you need to close out the chat, have a think and come back later that’s all good. Main thing is to work through this so that it helps you - this isn’t just a tickbox activity!