Remembering Your Future Self

No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it is not the same river and he is not the same man.
- Heraclitus

Remembering Your Future Self is not for the faint of heart. In the short term, it is infinitely more comfortable to just sit contentedly with your current self.

Getting up off the couch and going down to the gym is going to hurt. You will be sore and tired. Starting that project will bring late nights and one crazy annoying problem after another. You will wish you hadn’t started. Reworking that relationship will cause worry and maybe even heartache.

Can you imagine a future you who works through all this unavoidable adversity with relentless determination and a confident, generous spirit? A future self who stands exhausted but glad at the finish line?

Remember, change is a constant - progress is optional. Learn to visualize your journey on the river of change rather than just drifting along.

Remember Your Future Self!


Practical Exercise: Step-by-Step Visualization

Let's put this into practice with a step-by-step exercise:

1. Find a Quiet Space: Choose a calm and quiet place where you won’t be disturbed.

2. Relax Your Mind and Body: Take deep breaths and relax your body. Let go of any tension or stress. Two short breaths in through the nose and then one long breath out through the mouth is a sure fire way to relax.

3. Start with the Setting: Begin by visualizing the setting of your future life. Spatial computing was not invented in Silicon Valley, but is a core aspect of human intelligence - no additional hardware required!

4. Add Sensory Details: Enrich your visualization with sensory details. A few crucial details are all you need to trigger your sub-conscious to get to work. It will fill in additional details as the goal materializes. Use labeling to call out the key elements of your success, as if your success was being discussed on a play-by-play sports highlight segment.

5. Imagine Your Achievements: See yourself celebrating your achievements. Also be sure to realistically consider the effort and adversity needed to arrive at your goal. The Effort is the Reward.

6. Visualize Your Future Self: Focus on your appearance, actions, and emotions. This is the new you who is actually there to receive the goal achievement. He or she will be a different person than the current visualizer.

7. Connect Emotionally: Feel the emotions associated with your achievements. Give names to the emotions, and label how you will feel.

8. Imagine Failure: Spend time imagining how you will feel if you do not reach your goal. Just how awful will your feeling of regret be? Don’t skip this step. Despite all the well-deserved emphasis on “thinking positive” in the visualization literature - the very real possibility of failure is what unlock your brain’s powerful fight response system - propelling you into super focused action!

9. Repeat the Loop in Epochs: An important element of the visualization process is to cycle through your “success movie” in a series of short intense previews - at least 15-90 views, each lasting 30-90 seconds. These are like mental wind sprints driving forward with targeted momentum, not some leisurely jog into a hazy future.

10 Conclude with Gratitude: End your session with a feeling of gratitude for your future achievements. As you learn to Remember Your Future Self with gratitude, a feeling of inevitability and confidence will start to grow - further propelling your and accelerating your results.