How to make your career ‘future forward’

A fascinating paradox about expertise is that we use our experiences from the past to prepare ourselves for the future. We do that in several ways—some of which are more backward-looking and others of which prepare you for the future.

The most obvious of the backward-looking strategies is habits. When you develop a habit, you are associating a specific environment with a particular behavior. When you engage in a habit, you are basically letting your past actions dictate what you do in the moment.