What I love about thought work and coaching is that it is all future focused. It doesn’t require us to sort out every detail from birth to today to get going on our dreams. All it asks is that we consider what we can do today, with what we’ve got today in order to set us up for a better tomorrow and the day after that. No need to hash out your tumultuous relationship with your third grade teacher and why it is you hate number 2 pencils.
Also, it invites this crazy notion that simply by thinking differently and creating touch point reminders for where you want to go, you can step into the future NOW before it even happens. Wanna be a small business owner working on a local level to improve the economic landscape of your community? Imagine already having arrived at that place you think is somewhere months or years in the future. Imagine how that future version of yourself schedules their day. What do they wear? How do they work, rest, network, play, stay fresh? Do that stuff now. Create a scenario of inevitability where just walk into the identity you know you were meant to embody.
Why do I like this scenario? Because it’s instrinsically motivated and doesn’t need anyone else’s approval but my own. I don’t read the room, I don’t measure how people receive me or encourage me, I only work at supporting my own integrity and vision. When the relationship work is between myself and myself, I have all the information I need.
So today I’ll think, “My long-term goal is more important than short-term relief.” I’ll think that my future self takes her life seriously and does things on purpose so that means today I will take my life seriously and do things on purpose. My future self loves her life and sees all the amazing gifts surrounding her, so today I’ll see all the beauty and blessing that abound. If I don’t practice freedom and integrity now, it won’t be anywhere in sight when I reach the finish line. If I want to become a stronger, clearer, sounder version of myself, then that’s what I practice every day in small ways. And if the monster of my past busts in like the Kool Aid man to remind me of all the mistakes and failures I have lived? I remind myself that the past can’t do a damn thing for me. I don’t define myself by ways I’ve become broken. I define myself by who I think I am and what I want somewhere in the future.
Everything we think is out of reach is on the other side of a thought. Everything we think will make life easier or better isn’t actually about the thing- it’s about the feelings and thoughts we attribute to that thing. Why not practice those lotto/hot tub/Jamaica/CEO/promotion/true love thoughts and feelings now and walk into deeper living now? It has an effortless way of making life so much better.