3 Powerful Reasons Why Understanding Your Future Self Can Transform Your Present
We make sense of things in retrospect not when we are in the moment.
I have always believed reflection to be associated with the past. I was so wrong. Time is an idea. And so is the idea of reflection (retrospection).
So, I tried reflecting on the future. What we live in today, at this moment, was the future yesterday and will be past tomorrow.
We are able to see things clearly when we distance ourselves from them. So, when we look back at our past, we are able to see it clearly, we are able to look at it accurately for the right and wrong choices we made back then.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward.” — Steve Jobs
I’m fascinated with the idea of going into the future and becoming what we want to become and then looking back to the present we are living at this point, will we be able to see our present clearly? Maybe!
Some call it reverse engineering. I call it “futuro-spection.” Why am I calling it that? Because I’m a writer and I love making up new words.
Regret of Not Doing Something Is Worse Than Doing Something Badly
In my late 20s, I made a million plans and executed none. Although, there are things I didn’t plan but did consistently — partying, smoking, drinking, and being a rebel without a cause. And I thank myself for doing them (more on this later).
There’s a reason why everyone’s talking about how the journey is more important than the destination and the process is more important than the outcome. The reason is this — we don’t realize the precious time we are wasting by focusing too much on the future when we can do so much to make that same future our reality in the present.
The idea of wishful thinking is probably the most toxic and highly dopamine-inducing, so much so that we’re happy and content just thinking about it — thinking of having all those things was enough for the brain to produce the dopamine that gives the exact sensation of how you would feel after getting those things.
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” ― Thomas A. Edison
I don’t regret any of my failures though — in fact, I feel compassionate about my past self and that has made me empathetic towards others going through similar journeys.
During the research of a film I wrote, I interviewed a number of old people in old age homes and discovered that the biggest common factor that these old people had was the regret of not doing things. But, when I asked them about their failures — the wiser ones told me,
“Nobody thinks about your failures more than you do.”
All of them craved a life of freedom but had bought into the ideas of societal imprisonment deeply sown in their heads. And now, when they can see their end nearing them, they see clearly that those ideas were self-inflicted and that freedom was, is, and always had been a choice.
“Wear your failures as a badge of honor and turn them into your strength. Never forget them, as the world will never forget to remind you of them.”
Set Yourself Up for Greatness Not Bitter Ash of Failure
I think we all get what we set ourselves up for. When we buy a packet of cigarettes, we are setting ourselves up to become a smoker. When we buy a pen and a notebook, we set ourselves up to become writers or procrastinators. What you do today tells me what you will become tomorrow.
By this logic, your future is deeply connected to your actions today. So many of us are doing stuff that we will regret tomorrow and are so engrossed in it that we have no idea what we’re setting ourselves up for.
Look at the sportspersons you like, the amount of practice they do every day is what sets them up for the games they might participate in, years later.
I want to share a reframing technique here — this is what we generally think when we want to achieve something — we ‘DO’ something repeatedly to ‘BE’come someone.
What if we look at the same thing this way — ‘BE’ someone you want to be and then ‘DO’ what that someone is supposed to be doing — that’s how you can pull your future and make it hug your present — you can also go ahead and allow them to make love and have babies if you learn to perform this practice consistently.
This sets you up for an even better future than what you imagined for yourself. I’m sure you have figured out what I’m talking about — yes, Mindfulness, duh!
It’s your life. Mix up the things you do. Don’t stick to one plan. Experiment. Let me elaborate on this in the context of being a writer. Feel free to associate it with any aspect of your life though.
If I write 100 articles and I expect 20 of them to succeed (yes, I’m talking about Pareto’s principle, little geniuses!), you are setting yourself up to succeed two times out of ten.
When you compare this setup to the set-up of a person who wants to succeed two times and gives him(her)self two chances, do you see what you did there? Continue to do that.
“Just having clarity of what you want your tomorrow to look like will set you up miles ahead of where you are now.”
Have You Ever Felt Grateful to Your Past Self?
It’s intoxicating. The most self-sufficient feeling I have ever felt.
The usual human tendency is to think through all the steps you’re going to confront as a part of the journey you undertake to achieve your goals. The magic of having a system, a process is in discovering stuff you didn’t plan for because you didn’t know about them. That’s the reason we do the work we love.
I wanted to become a filmmaker, so I quit my comfortable high paying IT job, and got into a film school — and that’s where a horrifying proposition was waiting for me — I had to write my films if I wanted to direct.
It was terrifying at the time and I realized that I was directing bad films because I had no clue how to write the scripts I wanted to direct. I started taking my writing seriously and now, it’s been close to a year, that I have not directed anything, not even a commercial, but I found a writer in me.
When you plan a trip in the mountains, enjoy the view when you are traveling, the magic is when you are traveling, not when you reach the hotel.
Don’t be rigid in following one process — when you are starting out experiment, and you will discover new stuff about yourself.
“The best strategy to learn about yourself is to set yourself free and see what you get out of it with a curious eye, not a judgmental one.”
LAST
Regret is a disease that you can only cure in the past. Your present is going to be your past in the next moment, make sure you are doing things you love right now.
Give yourself enough chances to fail and the successes will surprise you. Let your mistakes be your guiding light and you will learn to enjoy navigating through the tunnels.
“Your past is where you cure regrets. Your future is where you live your dream life. And your present is where you have the power to bring together these three dimensions of your life.”
Don’t forget to enjoy the view when you are traveling, for the view is the point of the journey, not the destination.
Empathy with your future self is an experiment. Try it. You are being unfair to yourself if you are not trying new things and expecting new results.
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