Ep #39: Your Future Self

Hi! Welcome back! So glad you’re here! I’m so glad to be here! Let’s jump right in to today’s topic, the future!

Actually, you in the future, your future self.

This person doesn’t exist yet, only in our minds, but they will and too often they are not considered.

All that’s considered is what your present self wants, what you want now.

Your present self wants to feel comfortable instead of feeling urges. Your present self wants a whole tray of brownies because they’ll taste yummy. Your present self wants to do what’s easy.

All of those sound like legit things to want. Comfort, all the yummy brownies, easy stuff. Yes you want them, why wouldn’t you?

Well, because of what they will cause for you in the future.

That comfort will cause a binge. All the brownies will cause you to feel way too full, sick, and gross. The easy stuff will cause zero growth and change.

Do you ever think about that before you do it?

Too many people don’t, they just do what they want for themselves in that moment and don’t consider the future consequences.

They just want to feel better now without consideration of how they’ll feel later.

Their future self isn’t even a thought in their mind.

Or maybe they do consider it but tell themselves the lie that they’ll be fine later. I used to do that, tell myself that I’ll be able to eat all the food I bought and won’t feel debilitated afterward. Yeah, that never happened.

When you’re feeling an urge, the desire to feel good now may be strong, but what about your desire to feel good later? Or tomorrow?

The thing about only thinking about what you want now is that what makes you feel better now may not make you feel good later. In the same sense, what makes you feel good later may not feel good right now.

It’s like if I wanted to just blow off all my clients for the day and not do any work in my business and instead watch tv for hours and eat junk food all day, and I did it, it may feel really relaxing and enjoyable while I’m doing it.

But then what? I’d feel guilty for letting my clients down. I’d feel irritated because now have to work more to make up for what I didn’t get done. I’d feel regretful that I wasted my whole day doing nothing fulfilling. I’d feel physically awful after eating all that food.

Afterward would not be a fun time at all.

Your future self is going to feel the repercussions of what you do in this moment.

Your future self is the one who’s going to feel the guilt, regret, shame and any physical discomfort.

Most importantly, your future self is still you.

What you do in this moment is setting yourself up to feel something later and you get to decide what feeling that will be.

How do you want to feel an hour from now? Do you want to feel guilty? Regretful? Ashamed? Probably not.

But if you do only what you want for your present self right now, then you probably will.

Your future self matters. You will be her at some point!

You have to care about her.

You have to consider what she wants because the truth is that what she wants is also what you want.

If there’s an angel and a devil on your shoulders, the angel is your future self telling you what they want you to do so they can feel good and that devil is your primitive brain, your lower brain who only cares about what feels good now.

Listen to your future self. She knows all the answers.

A great question you can ask yourself before you do something is, “What would my future self want me to do?” Or even better, “What would my future future self want me to do?”

You can consider your future self to be you in an hour or so and then your future future self to be you tomorrow.

And then if you want to get real crazy, and really think about what you want in the future, you can ask your future future futureself who is already at your goal.

Whoa.

I bet she wants you to do some awesome, hard, life changing stuff!

She knows what it takes to get where she is so if you want to know what to do, you go ask her.

Tap into your inner wisdom. You know what you really want for yourself, sometimes you just gotta take a moment to ask.

If I ask myself right now if my future self would want me to stop recording this podcast, cancel all my calls for the day, delete everything off my calendar for the rest of the day so I can order pizza and breadsticks and dessert and watch Friends, a show which I’ve seen every episode of at least 5 times, all day you know what she would say?

Oh hell no!

No freakin’ way. Don’t you dare.

And you know what, I agree. When I really stop to think about it, that is not at all what I want to do with my day.

I want to get this done. I want to work with my clients. I want to get everything else done that I have planned. I don’t want to eat all the food and feel like an unmovable rock later and I sure as heck don’t need to be watching Friends again, even though I still just love that show so much and really can watch it over and over!

What your future self wants is what you truly want. If you’re not sure about what you want right now, or what to do right now, ask your future self.

Consider her when making a decision because she wants what’s best for you and she wants what will allow for her to live her best life.

Set yourself up for success. Consider the future and what you want when you’re there.

When you’re feeling that urge to binge, or you want to eat off plan or want to just give up for the day, do not do it until you’ve consulted with your future self and listen to her! It really really is what you want to do even if it doesn’t fully feel like it in your present moment.

Look at the big picture, not just what you feel like doing right now.

Now I want you to pick a day, any day, and decide where you want your future self to be in regards to your binge eating on that day. Then any time you’re making eating decisions, you consult her. Every time. Be partners in life with yourself. Do it together! Alright, I’ll talk to you next time, bye bye!