If you want to learn something about where your future is headed over the next ten years, take a close look at the stakeholders in your life and your career.

Stakeholders are the people (and sometimes the institutions) who can have an impact on your life and your future. Stakeholders are also those who will be impacted by your life and your actions, now and in the future.

Start with your family and close friends. If you have children who are under ten years old, during the next ten years they will become teenagers. That will have an impact on your life! If you have children who are already teenagers, over the next ten years they will be going through big changes in their own lives, and those changes will have an impact on you. Over the next ten years, today’s teenagers will probably complete their education, start work or begin a career, move out of the family home, begin a marriage or other relationship and may start a family—your grandchildren.

Over the next ten years, your parents, grandparents and other relatives will be getting older. Will they retire? Will they move from their home to another city or country? Will they be healthy? What will your relationship be with them and with your spouse’s parents? What will you feel will be your responsibilities to them, and how will you manage those responsibilities?

What about your best friends? They may move to a different area and drift out of your life, or you may still be connected electronically, while others may remain close throughout your life. I have friends from high school (sixty years ago) that I haven’t seen for twenty years, but who still exchange emails with me on a regular basis. Which close friends will still be in your social network ten years from now.

Consider the obvious, the people in your work and career life. How will ten years affect those relationships? If you have a mentor or a tormentor, is that person likely to still be around in ten years? If your best friends are the people you work with, what will happen when you retire?  Most of those relationships may end, leaving a large hole in your social network.

Businesses, institutions, and organizations can be stakeholders in your life. Your employer, your banker, the mortgage holder on your home, your credit card company all have a stake in your life, and can have positive or negative impacts over the next ten years.

As you consider each of the stakeholders in your life and your future, how might your relationship change in each case? Which can get better, which can deteriorate, and why. There may be actions can you take now to insure positive relationships and outcomes. By exploring these relationships now, you can learn something about your future, and find ways to make your future a good one!