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

It’s New Years, and a great time for making Rocket Goals! If you’ve struggled with goal setting in the past, consider starting this year with an entirely different approach. We call it “Remembering Your Future Self”.

Most goal setters out there are so busy with making clear visions and calculating tasks, and measuring time, and hitting deliverables that you completely ignore the most critical, surprising, and supremely interesting variable of the entire goal achievement equation - namely you, the goal seeking dervish at the center of it all!

We make our resolutions, but give precious little thought to the future self who will be on hand to receive the glorious results of all our hard fought victories.

If you think that the you of New Year’s Day 2025 will be remotely similar to the you looking back in the mirror today in 2024, not only will you be in for a rude surprise - but your goal setting efforts will be wildly inefficient and off course.

That’s because the future self that you remember will bear little resemblance to the current “you”. In fact, researchers have found that our identity continues to evolve and transform well into our 80s and beyond. This research holds true across ages and geographies all over the world. Even on a relatively short time horizon of 5 - 10 years, current you may barely recognize future you when you eventually meet them walking down the road!

This surprising and apparently universal identity transformation engine built into the human psyche is certainly cause for a pause… If the future you is already and undeniably in flux, what does this mean in terms of goal setting and visualization? Let’s dive in!

1). You Really Are a Free Bird
At the edges and right to down your very core, identity can be revised, and revised again. Despite what Lynyrd Skynyrd sang, you are a free bird - and Lord knows… you CAN change. The question is - do you want to be deliberate about how this change unfolds, or just sit back and see what happens?

2). Only Set a Goal if You Actually Want to Change
Let’s be honest. There is a lot of hoopla about New Year’s Resolutions, but many of us have grown comfortable with our current identity. We can stay in our comfort zone and be nudged along by change, or decide to step on the accelerator and go meet the mysterious future you full speed ahead. In this regard, there is no right or wrong path to choose, but if we’re honest, most of us dial up a mix of both comfort and growth.

3). Don’t Get Caught in the Ring of Fear and Indecision
When you do decide to leave the comfort zone and set ambitious goals, it is very important to be decisive and really embrace change. This excellent diagram depicts what happens when we make a half-hearted attempt at change and wind up in the moat of fear and indecision. Far better to “Change Big”, or just stay warm and cozy at home in you comfort zone - rather than floundering around in the Fear Zone attempting some half-hearted change.

4). Dress the Part, Literally
Changing your Identity is not as easy as trying on new clothes, but almost! Your external environment can be easily manipulated to match your future identity. Buy the new clothes, go to the new places, read the new magazines, meet the new people who will all be part of your future identity. Method actors apply this powerful technique to transform themselves into legendary stage and movie characters - and so can you.

5). You Really Do Live in a Multiverse of Identities
You have different roles, and there is nothing wrong with shaping different identities for different situations. Your professional identity can and often should be very different from your home life identity. No one really enjoys living with the professional trader/doctor/fire fighter etc. who can’t learn to come home and turn off their professional high intensity identity.

6). Learn to Shift Your Identity from Room to Room
Some people with high emotional intelligence can intuit what each situation demands, and subtly dial-in their identity by “reading the room”. But for many people, it takes practice and skill to gain control of their identity and even manipulate it as the situation demands. This does not mean becoming some kind of unstable manipulative character, but rather - learn to match your identity to what the situation demands, rather than stubbornly clinging to some notion of yourself that is going to change anyway.

7). Lean Into Change, Now More Than Ever
You don’t need to be some kind of tech visionary to recognize that there are tremendous forces of change at work heading into 2024. In the midst of this tsunami of change, the first instinct is to try and preserve your current roles and identity.

However, this is the year to do the exact opposite. Try changing as fast if not faster than the tidal wave of change that is sweeping in. As you start to change, it can feel both exhilarating and frightening to fully grasp how malleable our core identity can be. But we can take comfort that change has been churning and churning for ages and ages past. As Marcis Aurelius famously noted - “Observe always that everything is the result of change, and get used to thinking that there is nothing Nature loves so well as to change existing forms and make new ones like them.” Or, as Billy Joel sang - and now Fallout Boy - We Didn’t Start the Fire..!

If you want new results in 2024, set new goals and then actually expect and be prepared for new things. In fact, expect and look and seek for a new you! He or she is coming one way or another, and New Year’s day is the perfect day to start accurately remembering and getting to know that very different future you!