How to Leverage your Future Self

It is time for a dose of perspective.

There is a future version of yourself whom you will become.

Imagine you could meet that person right now.

What does that person look like? Sound like? Act like?

What stories do they have? What regrets?

What have they accomplished?

Would you be proud of who you became?

Taking this perspective is a great way to create clarity in your life NOW.

Today, I am going to share how to leverage this perspective to set you up to level up your performance and crush your goals.

Let’s jump right in.

Your Future Self

Project your mind into the future by a decade or two.

Run a mental simulation.

If you visualize yourself in the future, pay attention to what you are doing, where you are, and what you look like. What is your life like?

Now freeze that image.

Everything you see is a result of your actions.

The way you move, look, feel… all of it… are all due to the habits and systems you have in place today.

If you look at the habits and behaviors you have today, imagine you continue down this exact path. Where is it leading? Where will you be in a decade or two?

Will you arrive at your ideal future self?

Or is there a gap between your trajectory and your target?

If you act now, there is still time to close the gap.

And there are questions you can ask…

Visualizations you can perform…

Which will help create the clarity you need.

Visualization 1 - Regrets

Sometimes we just don’t know what we want. And that is OK.

We often know better what we DON’T want.

And this can be a big motivator for us.

Fastforward to your future self. Consider what you would regret.

What do you wish you would have done more of?

What would you have done less of?

Is there a risk you never took? An opportunity you missed? A decision you failed to make?

If you look closely, these envisioned regrets can show us what we really value.

Visualization 2 - Accomplishments

What has your future-self accomplished?

David Goggins talks about his future self in his book Can’t Hurt Me.

He talks about having a fear about his death. He describes his fear of showing up at the pearly gates, St. Peter has a description of the man he was supposed to be: Navy Seal, Army Ranger, Ultra-runner… etc. His fear is seeing something on that list that he DIDN’T do, but knew he was capable of doing.

What is on that list for you?

Were you meant to be fit and healthy?

Were you meant to have run that marathon?

Were you supposed to write a book of poetry?

Were you slated to help more people?

What accomplishments are you dreaming about right now? Which goals are you continually putting off.

These are signs or roads to take.

Visualization 3 - Relationships

I have written about this in a few other articles.

Relationships matter.

It is not unusual for a workaholic to prioritize their career over their relationships only to reach a point where nobody wants to be around them anymore.

This is tragic. Don’t let this be you.

Imagine you are on your death bed. Who do you want around you?

What was your impact on each of those individuals?

What was your impact on them?

Make a list of the most important people in your life and consider: what are you doing to build those relationships.

What conversations are you having with them?

Susan Scott says in her book Fierce Conversations, that relationships are built, maintained, or destroyed on conversation at a time.

Again, what conversations are you having? Are they building your relationships? Or are they maintaining or destroying them?

This visualization creates clarity on who we need to make time for.

Visualization 4 - Impact

The final visualization is one of impact.

People who have had near death experiences share a common story of the “life review.” They say they re-lived each important moment in their life where they impacted others and experienced the moment from the other person’s perspective. They feel the hurt they caused. But they also feel the pivotal moments when they helped someone else or created a positive impact for them.

Imagine that you knew you were going to have to do a life review. How many positive impactful experiences would you re-live?

How many more could you create before you leave this earth?

So many people need help. So many people need someone to listen to them. So many people need you.

What is the impact you want to have on this Earth? What could you do more of to stack more positive impacts in your life review?

This visualization puts your actions into the context of others.

The Wrap Up

Clarity is king.

As you keep setting goals and crushing achievements consider how these actions are influencing your path.

Are your actions putting you on a path of regret? Or a path of satisfaction?

Are you on a path of impact? Of thriving? Of great memories?

Throw your mind into the future.

Imagine your ideal self.

Then work backwards to prioritize the actions to take.

And as always, keep crushing it.

Clark