Setting goals is easy. Reaching goals is hard.
But what if you had a guide?
Someone to show you the way?
Sometimes the best guide you could hope for is your future self.
Consulting your future self is a good way to start with the end in mind. Or start feeling and visualizing with the end in mind.
Who is your future self? We’re going to get a little “meta” here, but stay with me. Your future self is an infinite (well, infinite up until the day you die) number of versions of yourself, including the one you are right now.
You are your future self at this moment – you’re the person now that you were going to be a week ago, a month ago, 10 years ago.
Your future self is also you tomorrow, next week, next year or even 20 years from now.
Your future self can teach you a lot. A week ago, you were growing into the future self that you are in this moment. You have arrived. What are you feeling, now that you are this new version of yourself compared to a week ago?
I told you we were going to get a little meta.
Let me use this example: let’s say at the beginning of 2019, you made some new year’s resolutions. You set a goal of saving $5,000. But, despite setting that goal, you reached the end of 2019 and the savings you accumulated was only $500. Now it’s 2020 and you are now the future version of yourself when you started to save the $5,000 a year ago.
What would your future self (who you are in this moment) say to the self that was starting to save the money at the beginning of 2019?
He/she might say things like:
“I would probably reverse-engineer that money goal by breaking it down month-to-month. i.e. you need to save $417 per month, or $209 per paycheck to reach that goal. “
“I would check to make sure that target is realistic“
“I would set a budget and make sure you save first.”
“I would create a way to track your progress so you can course-correct with time, if necessary.“
Your future self in this moment has already learned so much, and if you take the time to tap into those lessons now, wow – you hold so much wisdom. You can apply that wisdom to the future.
Now, it’s the beginning of 2020 and everyone is all gung-ho about setting new year’s resolutions and 2020 goals – including me and a group of awesome people who are participating in my free Unstoppable in 2020 Goal-Setting Challenge.
In the challenge facebook group, we’ve been talking a lot about your future self and how that can help you set intentional goals that are in alignment with your “true you”. (You can still sign up to get the free workbook HERE).
Using the money example above, go back to the beginning of 2019 when you wanted to save the $5,000. Imagine what your future self would feel like when you had saved that money.
Who would he/she be? How would life be different? Maybe you’d be able to picture yourself on a sunny beach vacation to the Caribbean with your family. Maybe you would be just that much closer to having a down payment for a house. How would you feel on that vacation? How would you look? How would live improve? What would that mean to you?
If you have new year’s resolutions, I encourage you to make them into real goals with an action plan. Goals where you’ve drawn on the visualization and embodiment of your future self to guide you.
We’re working on all of this inside of my free goal-setting challenge, and today, we’re adding on a step – taking the wisdom of our future self and our “WHY” to make our goals SMART. From here, we will be able to create some action steps to take us right to our future self, using him/her as a guide.
Let’s break down how we can use the concept of our future self in goal-setting.
Set Your Goal
First things first, give yourself something to shoot for. What do you want to accomplish in the next year (or next month, etc)?
Consult your future self
Figure out the REAL reason WHY the goal is important. Here’s where your future self comes into play.
Picture yourself when you’ve reached that goal. How do you feel? How do you look? How is life different? How are you different? Be detailed. Really embody that future person. How will your life be better?
Now ask your future self – WHY is this goal important? Why will reaching the goal be worth it? Why do you want to feel the way you think you’ll feel? Why do you want your life to change the way it will if you reach your goal?
Thank Your Future Self
Your future self holds SO much wisdom. We don’t really tap into it often enough. But you hold all of the answers within you. You always have and you always will.
Create a plan with action steps
Now that you have a super clear picture of your future self when you’ve reached your goal, you can create a plan to get you to that feeling or way of being. The rest is logistics and planning! (and remember, you can always join my goal-setting challenge – the rest of our week is creating the plan with doable steps to get you to your future self). You can sign up HERE.
I hope you’ve found this way of thinking helpful in forming goals for yourself. The statistics say that the average amount of time people stick to their new year’s resolutions is 12 days. 92% of people don’t actually accomplish them. But the good news is that the 92% likely doesn’t do a shred of planning, let alone consulting their future selves!
You are already way ahead of the game, my friend!
If you want to work on making your 2020 goals S.M.A.R.T, creating a plan to overcome obstacles that might throw you off track and put it all together into an actionable plan to become the future self who has reached your goals, you can still join my free challenge HERE.
It’s a great group of peeps that are really doing some great work and are guaranteed to have their best year ever!
Hey there! I’m Kortney
Do you need some help with accountability in reaching your goals? Working with a coach is the perfect way to make planning and tracking progress a breeze.
Would you like to schedule a free Kickstart Call to explore how it works? It’s completely free of charge and no obligation. The purpose of the call is for you to get a little bit of free coaching and see if it’s a good fit for you!
You can learn more about me and find the link to schedule a Kickstart Call HERE.
