STEPPING INTO MY FUTURE SELF

Struggle is?inherent?in life.?I have daily trials and tribulations. I have many things I want to accomplish.?I want to make changes to my life and do things differently.?How many times have I decided “That’s it!?I am sick and tired of this.?I am changing!”?Yet, when push comes to shove, not much happens.

It is human nature to want to change.?It is human nature to want change to be easy – just flip a switch.?Most important, it is human nature to relegate change to the future.?For some crazy reason people seem?hard-wired to believe that they can and will do things in the future that they?can’t?and won’t do today.?It doesn’t matter what area of life we are talking about.?we are clear that the in future we will act consistent with our highest ideas and values even though today we find ourselves deficient in those areas.

This is why most students end up cramming for test.?the thinking goes, “I’ll put it off today and work harder the next couple of days.”?The scenario plays out over and over?again?until there is no tomorrow and they are pulling all-nighters.

Salespeople have detailed and?elaborate plans of how?to knock it out of the park next year.?But?when?the new year starts, and the future date becomes the present, all of those plans fly away like pixie dust.

With today’s health challenges people look to the future and see conquering the?challenges, happily thinking that tomorrow will be better.?When tomorrow comes, the challenges are anything but conquered.

Tomorrow is a place of?idyllic euphoria?until we get there and it becomes today.?Then, not much has changed.

I have been tossing this around for the last few days and I have a couple of ideas that I think will help.

#1 –?I used to swim regularly.?I enjoyed being in the water and it was a great exercise program for me.?Some days I was not in the mood and wanted to “skip it today and swim tomorrow instead.”?I found a way to push myself.?I made a deal with myself that after I swam 2 laps, I could stop anytime I wanted to.?I would jump into the pool and usually finish my half mile swim.

The idea is to make the project small.?Agree to do 10 minutes and the allow yourself to stop.?Once you have started you will continue much longer.?This applies to any endeavor that you are pushing off.?Just get your inner?procrastinator to?agree to do the desired behavior for a very short timeframe.?Once you get going you will do it longer than expected.?

#2 – When the tomorrow bug hits.?Stop and think for one minute.?What it one thing I could do now to make it real today as opposed to tomorrow???Any little action that makes the value or behavior alive today is an act of recreating yourself?conforming to your vision.

#3 – Follow the advice of Eleanor Roosevelt.?“Do one thing every day that scares you.”?Often fear pushes us away from?accomplishing biggest dreams.?Doing something that feels scary is often liberating and invigorating.?Many people experience their fears like jumping out of a window.?After they jump they find out they were in the basement!??Our mind creates fear..

#4 – Let go of the future totally.?If you live everyday to its fullest, you will blow past any goal you would have set.?Live in the present.?Make the present count and the future will take care of itself.

I know that my future can only happen through my present.?I am working on stopping to push my success to the future and daily work on the present.?If I do today what I always say I will do tomorrow.?When tomorrow gets here, I will have everything that I wanted and then some.