Things have been rather interesting this year, haven’t they? Between lockdowns, a pandemic, and job fluctuations, I can definitely say I’ve had an interesting year. However, at least in my case, it hasn’t been a bad year. I put out several different works of fiction, three of them in October alone. So I’m not going to knock the fact that even amidst all that has gone on, I can’t say this was a bad year. It could have been FAR, FAR worse. On the flipside, I cannot really say it was a good year. I’ve gone from one anxiety related thing to another sometimes in very short spans. Things haven’t quite turned out the way I wanted, but eh… bad year is relative. Things could have been FAR, FAR better, though it might not necessarily meant I got what I wanted. All things considered, things weren’t terrible but they also weren’t great. It was a meh year for me at best and I’m not going to be sorry to see it go.
I finally finished “Stop doing that Sh*t” by Gary John Bishop. A worthwhile read to say the least. It did help me get some insight into why I do things the way I do. I haven’t quite figured out how much of it is healthy and how much isn’t, but that isn’t really the point. The point is to live the life I want. That brings me to today’s topic: The Future Self. Bishop points out that the general way people live is to live according to their past. It has happened; therefore, it will happen again. Our brains/selves are so wired to the idea of who were that we repeat the same behaviors over and over again so as not to completely threaten this concept of ourselves.
I’ve noticed it in my own life in how I tend to start things and then give up on them because I have a way of convincing myself that they don’t really work. Take book marketing, for example; I have 30 pieces out there. Yet I don’t make anything close to a living on them. My past self is convinced marketing doesn’t work, so I try it for a while and then I give up because ‘marketing doesn’t work,’ no one is going to buy the stuff I write. Empirically I know this to be incorrect, but I have a feeling concept that marketing doesn’t work. No matter what I do, no one will buy my work. Therefore, I shouldn’t bother trying to market anything. Therefore, I do not make a living off my work. Good job, self! Needless to say, looking at it on the screen in front of me, I see the fallacy in the argument. Just because it hasn’t worked before doesn’t mean it won’t work now or later. Thus I need to settle up to what I can do in order to get myself moving.
In wanders the future self. Bishop says we do need something to base our decisions on; however, it doesn’t have to be our past. If it isn’t our past, you ask, what do we pin our present to? The reality is, there are only two things which one can pin a present on: Past or Future. One either makes decisions based on who you were or who you are going to be. According to Bishop, choosing to be allied with your past is a quick way to end up doing the same things over and over again. We sabotage ourselves with the inability to move forward when we rely on or align with our past selves. However, the future self, to many, feels like a pie in a sky dream. You cannot be certain of what will happen in the future, so the uncertainty makes it difficult to simply go: what would my future self do?
In Steve Kamb’s “Level Up Your Life,” as well as several others, you are asked to define what your life would be like at level 50. This is an ideal life scenario. No matter who you are, you kinda have an idea of what your dream life would be like. Pie in the sky, pipe dream life where would I be if I couldn’t fail kinda life. In my dream life, I want to be a moderately famous, successful author. That is my overall goal. The question then becomes: how do I get there? Or in the parlance of the future self: What can I do today that my future self will thank me for? That is my primary question lately. No matter what I do, my future self is my guide. It is what is keeping me on track because it defines the track. It’s the pull method of working instead of the push or punishment methodology many of us use for ourselves and others.
Goal or Resolution.
I heard somewhere that you reach a goal, you keep a resolution. I don’t remember who said that to attribute it properly, but understand I know it wasn’t me who made that astute observation. I’ve always sort of reached for a goal. I’ll be happy when I get there. When I make it to the end game. Unfortunately, in the game of life there is no pause. You must enjoy things as time continues to march on. You will never be able to stop time, so you have to love and move. Coming back to the resolution versus goal thing. Following your future self feels much more like making a resolution than making a goal. Your future self will always be in the future. So no matter what day it is, your future self is always waiting for you over the next horizon. Thus you will always be able to ask: What can I do today that my future self will thank me for. You will, and always should be, a work in progress. No matter what else happens, you are constantly making improvements. James Clear “Atomic Habits” says that those incremental improvements are perhaps more important than anything large. Probably because things like ‘gateway habits’ are much easier to keep than something more drastic.
So what does this have to do with the future self? Well, incremental improvements being easier to sustain + the question of what you can do for your future self means you make changes you can sustain over a longer period of time. If it is always about the future (which never quite gets here) then you don’t ever have a point at which you have failed to achieve your aim. You don’t have a date on it, you can’t hear the deadline swoosh as it goes by unheeded. Seems simple enough.
Every day, I ask myself: What can I do today my future self will thank me for? I posted on my Insta one day that it was about monitoring my thoughts and how they affect my actions. Thus, every day, I work toward a future I can see a little bit.
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