Optimal Now and Future Focus
Future Life Line
Draw a line left to right across the page. Put 0 at the left end and 100 at the right end. With the advances in science it is fair to say we can live to 100.This is your lifeline
Mark half way, 50 years old
Mark where you are now
How many years do you have to potentially live?
WOW! That Many
What are your goals?
When we are young we work towards milestones, like finishing school, getting a job, getting married, having children. We have a strong sense of purpose in life and personal growth.
Have you reached the point of “WHAT NOW?”
Humans are evolving creatures that need to grow to be happy.
When you are making progress with your life and making things happen you feel such a good feeling at the time. I believe that’s when you are the happiest.
Life is like being at Harvard, studying The Human Life Experience. It’s not supposed to be easy.
We have our best results in learning when we have been uncomfortable (ADVERSITY) and have persevered. This takes courage. With courage comes resilience and then confidence.
So many of us look to our past for evidence of what the future will look like and can be. This simply creates more of the same. I challenge you to create your future. Nothing was ever invented by repeating the same stuff over. It had to be created in someone’s mind first. Many mistakes and courage later ‘it’ was created. Are you ready to create your own future?
You can wait or you can create
Ask yourself
Where do I want to be in 5 years? 10 years? 25 years?
How much money do I want to have?
Where do I want to be living?
What kind of work will I be doing?
How fit will I be?
Write it down now under your life line.
Visualise your future self. She’s made it. She’s climbed to the top of the mountain. What a view she has from there to watch and guide you. She is who you are without the self-doubt, struggle and with a sense of peace and fulfillment and accomplishment. She is who you are without negative belief to hold you back. She is wise and beautiful. And she’s a bad ass.
Be Your Own Guide
Nobody knows you better than you
One of my favourite and most empowering things to do worth my clients and with myself is to learn from my future self. I ask my future self what she would do in any given situation, when I feel fear, doubt or apprehension. She is free from negative belief systems I currently have. She tells me everything will be OK and to be confident that I can achieve. In believing in her, I believe in myself.
As my own wise future self, I would love to be able to go back and tell myself 10 years ago that everything is as perfectly as it should be and that everything will be OK . Don’t sweat the small stuff. Let people be wrong about you. I would tell her she is loved and I am proud of her for surviving tough times of loneliness and heartache. I would encourage her to keep working hard, have courage and follow her dreams and intuition. I would tell her it’s all as it should be. Because I know.
It’s important to plan in advance and see yourself in the future.
Visualise the entire process of a goal or dream. To anticipate times when it gets tough and you will struggle and plan for them. To think about times when you will plateau and it doesn’t seem worth it and it’s to hard. To plan for the struggle. Recognise the desire to want to give up. You can expect this to happen (and it will) you won’t get caught off guard and throw in the towel.
Plan In Advance
A great tool I learned from one of my teachers, Brooke Castillo, was to write out a story of how you think it will happen before it actually happens. Include the ups and downs. Anticipate how success will feel, look and sound. How will you handle it? Anticipate feeling fearful and wanting to sabotage your success in favour of a belief system that didn’t work (A belief is just a thought you have over and over until it becomes a belief- its not fact). Visualise yourself facing a stressful situation in your life and wanting to give up your dreams because you can’t handle it.
You will be challenged. Someone might die. You might get sick. Your partner might leave you. You might loose your job. How will you stay connected to your self? How will you stay committed to your dreams when it’s easier just to survive? You will do it by looking at your future self. You will dig deep into your hearts truest desire and know no matter what happens you can continue to reach your truest desire. You will know this is when your strength will be tested and increased. This is when you become more of who you really are.
See your future self, peaceful, wise and supportive and knowing failure and setback is all part of the process.
Plan for success and you will have it