Future You Inc

Who do you see as your future self? Who do you aspire to be? Seriously, permission to open your heart and imagination here. What kind of traits do they have? What are your relationships like? Have you found or reignited with the love of your life? What level of success or happiness do they enjoy? What do they physically look like? What is a typical day for your future self? What is their level of health and energy?

If your answer is not much changes. Maybe more gray hair or less hair, maybe a little fatter. Yup, a few more aches and pains and a few more gripes about how kids don’t get it. Maybe I’ll make a little more money but I’m pretty much going to be the me I am now just a bit older. This is what I was born with talent wise so it is what it is.

If this is you, then this tells me you have a fixed mindset vs a growth mindset.

Good news! You can learn to have a growth mindset if you choose to make this shift and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t even be reading this if you didn't already have a growth mindset or are leaning in that direction.

James Clear said it best in his book Atomic Habits

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity. This is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change. Small habits can make a meaningful difference by providing evidence of a new identity. And if a change is meaningful, it is actually big. That's the paradox of making small improvements.”

Because of neuroplasticity, our brain grows and strengthens existing networks as we repeatedly feed it information of who we are moving towards becoming. When you practice imagining this future you, your brain is firing up those networks to make it more of a reality. The thing is your brain doesn’t actually know the difference so when these thoughts come into your consciousness, your own neuro networks start to hard wire it in. For years we didn’t know that adults had plasticity in their brains like children but as our understanding grows so does our ability to make real changes in our destinies.

Your mindset has a dramatic impact on how you view the world and what's possible as far as your place in the world. Dr. Carol Dweck, psychologist explains in her book Mindset, the two main mindsets.

Fixed mindset — “In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.”

Growth mindset — “In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”

Here is an example of the difference. Let’s say you are playing golf for the first time. Like most new players, you are not exactly Tiger Woods. Balls go flying in the wrong direction and sometimes you miss the ball entirely, launching large chunks of grass in the air. The fixed mindset person might decide they are just lousy at this and it was a complete waste of time, vowing to never give this a try again. Their ego is making it clear that this failure is not worth repeating. Way to risky to a fragile ego. Put it behind you. The growth mindset person might say “boy that sucked” but would acknowledge they are just getting started in the learning process. They would note the challenges and decide if they want to learn from them and grow. They see past these perceived failures as a chance to learn and grow.

Back to your future self. Who will you be 10 years from now? What will you be doing? Here is the thing. Your future self can guide you. Remember, this is the wiser, more experienced you. This mentor has accomplished the goals you wish to achieve. Future you has already suffered the slings and arrows, ups and downs of the challenges of accomplishing these big goals and came through as the champion!

Think of how fortunate you are to have you! I know that sounds a bit nutty but I’m serious here. This is a powerful and effective strategy for creating your desired future identity. True manifesting is becoming the person who creates the life they desire and receives the material rewards they want. Its not about sitting around praying and wishing for these things to magically appear. I’ll repeat myself. You have to become the person who receives these things. If you were that person now you would already have them.

One of my favorite journaling exercises is creating my future self. Imagine who you would be 3, 5 or 10 years from now. What that would feel like. What have you achieved? Where are you living? What is your daily life like? What is your physical health like? This isn’t just some exercise in fantasy thinking, this image can become a lighthouse sending a signal to you so you can navigate the dangerous waters of life and make it to the destination you desire. The Genius of your future self, is that they (you)have already figured out and blazed the trail. If you really explore this thought exercise it will reveal steps you need to take to become who you know you are capable of being. Now to throw a qualifier in there, this isn’t dreaming of becoming a superhero with superpowers or top Olympic athlete when you haven’t exactly gotten off the couch for a few years. This is about who you think you are and who you know you are capable of being. So it’s important to find the sweet spot here. I’m not telling you to think small but I’m also telling you not to be delusional.

Here is a hard and fast truth. If you like to think of your future self making way more money, being way happier than having the love you’ve always wanted. Your current thinking probably isn’t going to cut it. Your current thinking has got you to where you are now. You’re obviously very successful at being you at your current level.

In his book “Think Again'' by Adam Grant, he talks about how we are always updating our tech but not our belief system. Out of all the technology at our fingertips, how we run our own system should take top priority. This little shift in thinking opens you up to reaching a belief that will get you to the future self you know you’re capable of becoming. The bottom line is if we aren’t updating our limited beliefs we will pretty much just keep on the current path we are on getting very predictable results.

“ If you’re not embarrassed by who you were 12 months ago, you didn’t learn enough”

British philosopher Alain De Botton

“ if you don’t think a lot of what you were doing last year is stupid then you haven’t learned enough”

Ray Dalio

Yeah I know, those are some pretty harsh quotes but I think you get the point.

Back to my future self journaling story. At the time I didn’t even know this was a thing. All I knew was I had to figure out a way to raise the bar in my life because I was miserable. I wanted love in my life and I wanted a home where my children could safely play in the backyard. The reality was I had a temp job making nine bucks an hour and I was living with my mother in my old bedroom. So in other words I was a broke non-sexy bastard.

I started writing every day about how I Could improve my situation just a tiny bit. Just 5 to 10 minutes of writing. Pretty much just a 1% improvement. Some days there wasn’t much to say but a brief rant and maybe a question. How can I? Some days it felt more inspired. I asked the question what would a guy have done who now owns a house and didn’t have a lot of money. This question related to examining every possible way I could get my hands on some cash. I started looking at houses that were on the market. I admit this was frustrating. About three months later I was walking my mother’s dog ( yeah still living in my old bedroom) when I came upon a woman nailing a for sale sign into the ground in front of a sweet looking older home. Out of curiosity I asked her how much. She said “honey, make whatever offer you want, the owner is deceased and the relatives just want to dump it” I slept on this, and called the realtor the next day and made a ridiculously low offer. I’ll pay 60,000 if you cover all the closing costs. To my amazement, they got back to me a couple of days later and said okay.

This was the moment of complete freak out. How the hell am I going to buy this house? At this point I was spending quite a bit of time with my new girlfriend and working ridiculous over time. She actually wrote the check for the down payment, 500 bucks to help me get the ball rolling. Yes, I paid her right back! Now I was faced with the challenge of getting a bank to loan me the money. Lets see, I’m in the middle of a divorce I have no money, I’m in debt, and my temp job ends in three months. A totally worthwhile loan applicant, right? So after getting flat out rejected by several banks, I just kept writing the question how can I get the loan?

One day when I was driving to work following the same route I had driven countless times before, I noticed a small sign in front of a house, Mortgage Broker. I figured why not have some more rejection I’m starting to get very used to it so I pulled into the driveway and knocked on the door. This friendly middle-aged guy answered and we started chatting. I told him my predicament and the sad story of my divorce. Amazingly he was going through a very similar situation. We connected so well, that he told me that he would make it his life mission to get me the money to buy that house. Honestly at the time I thought he was just blowing smoke up my ass but it felt good to have somebody saying they were in my corner. Long story short, he found some sketchy lender to put up the cash for me. Sure, the interest rate was near loansharking level but I was able to close on the house. Three days short of my six-month goal.

Looking back at my journal, you can clearly see the path. It started with the end result desired. It started with the feelings and emotions of what this accomplishment would be like. How it would impact my life. How I would view myself. And then it was a matter of reverse engineering it. You see, in many cases we already know on a deep level exactly what we need to do. The challenges are the bullshit voices in our head and the stories we tell ourselves. Sometimes that inner voice can be helpful and many times it’s going to sabotage you. By getting it out of your head and onto paper, you now have a touchstone to bring you back to what you really want. This in turn can help quiet the negative voice and bring about the analytical side of your brain. How can I?

By making Future self journaling a daily habit, your odds will go way up that you will be consistently moving in this direction. It’s as simple as just deciding on the next step. Forget the staircase. Focus on the next move. The truth is some of those moves are going to make you stumble. But that’s okay. Knowing what doesn’t work is super valuable.

“Failure is instructive. The person who really thinks learns quite as much from his failures as from his successes.”

― John Dewey

Where your focus goes your energy flows. This has been said in different ways by countless Gurus. Why? Because it’s true! Your future self journal practise ensures that you focus on this every day. We are going for a small shift, starting with your awareness, in tiny manageable increments. The power is in the consistency. By making this small easy practice part of your morning routine, you will keep that energy flowing where you really want it. Remember, a 1% improvement every day for year equals 37 times improvement.

By writing in your journal each day, you keep your conscious as well as your subconscious focused on the out come you are already clear on. When you write about your future self it is way more effective to write in the present tense. For example if your goal is to be a world traveler you would write Something like “I enjoy regular adventures through world traveling every year” the real power is using your imagination to really feel what this would be like. This actually fires off neurotransmitters like Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and endorphins. These happy chemicals help you to hard wire in the intended emotional power that will increase your odds of creating this desired future. Remember, your subconscious doesn’t know the difference between success or imagined future success.

I journal daily not because I love to write but because I have personally enjoyed the proven benefits of it. By using the simple technique of future journaling you are upping your odds of becoming who you know you are capable of being.

There is who you think you are and who you know you are capable of being. By regularly future journaling, you can begin to close the gap between the two. I would consider this to be a super habit because of all the spill over benefits you will reap from this small action.

“Your subconscious mind works while you are awake and while you sleep” Napoleon Hill

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious” Thomas Edison

Hopefully, I have sold you on the “why” you should introduce this super habit into your life. Here is a simple outline to prompt you.

1. Start with what you are grateful for now. I keep this simple by writing 3 things I am grateful for. Yeah, gratitude is a powerful way to get the happy chemicals flowing. Don’t underestimate the value of appreciating what you already have.

2. Focus on just a couple of areas or stay pretty specific. Too many is like the old says “trying to catch 3 rabbits at once means you don’t catch any rabbits”

3. Think about the characteristics of this future self and pick one trait. If your future self is the picture of health (this is one of mine) make a list of current behaviors that conflict with this and pick one to focus on. Remember it’s easiest to pick things to delete from your life as opposed to adding. In the excellent book of habit change “Tiny Habits,” this is called a swarm of behaviors. My future self would not eat snacks at night so I completely gave up snacking after dinner. This brought me a couple of steps closer to my picture of a healthy future self.

4. Go easy on yourself! This isn’t a dissertation. The idea is keeping your brain on track to find the easy 1% improvements. Don’t get lost in over analyzing.

5. A great question is “what would your future self think about the behaviors you regularly engage in?” This is not an exercise in self judgment as it is an exercise in editing out the kryptonites in your life

As always, If you need help, guidance, help creating a solid action plan, accountability or just a swift kick in the ass, I’m at your service. You can reach me at MondayChangesEverything.com