Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation

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Your schedule reflects your priorities. Your schedule reflects what you're actually committed to. Most schedules are dominated by urgent battles and lesser goals such as meetings and Zoom calls. Rarely does someone's schedule reflect and prioritize their Future Self over their current self."

NOTES FROM TRUTH #1: “Many, if not most, goals are reactive to one's environment or situation. The more intentional and proactive you become in your actions, goals, and thinking, the more intelligent and freer you'll be." THREAT #2: A Reactive Narrative About Your Past Stunts Your Future “We reinterpret or reconstruct our memory in light of what our mental set is in the present. In this sense, it is more accurate to say the present causes the meaning of the past, than it is to say that the past causes the meaning of the present." -Brent Slife

The Quality of Your Connection with Your Future Self is the Key

NOTES FROM STEP #4: “You can know you're committed to something when you ask for it. When you ask directly, boldly, and without apology. Start asking, and you'll start receiving. It's startling how fast you'll get what you want once you directly ask." This is a more nuanced chapter of the book, and I love the way Dr. Hardy covers it. It's a beautiful conception of God he has (see my Notes below), but what it boils down to is that how you see your place in the universe will affect your actions behaviors within it. The End of History Illusion is the name given to the tendency of human beings to believe that all the changes that are going to happen have already happened. I'm often guilty of this as well when I read history books and forget that someone else will write a history book about the time period I'm living in now. Truth #4 is that the more measurable and detailed your Future Self, the faster you’ll progress toward your goals. NOTES FROM TRUTH #3: “Rather than putting your Future Self in deeper debt, make your Future Self wealthier. Continually position your Future Self for freedom of time, money, relationships, and overall sense of purpose. An investment toward your Future Self is any conscious action you're making toward chosen goals. Every time you consciously invest in something specific, whether learning, health, relationships, or experiences, your Future Self grows more capable, free, and mature. Every investment compounds over time, making your Future Self wealthier. The earlier you invest, the more your Future Self compounds."

Accept and know that what you want is yours, and you can be and do from your goal, rather than to your goal. You know you've already succeeded, and act from the position and mindset of your Future Self. Because you're acting from the goal, rather than toward the goal, your actions are far more powerful and aligned. Your actions come from your identity. When your identity is rooted in current commitments, rather than your Future Self, your actions are weak and unaligned with your goal. The only way to realize your Future Self is to beyour Future Self now. Be, then do, then have. Once you accept the truth of your Future Self, and know it's already yours, then your actions align with your vision. Your circumstances change immediately. You see what you didn't previously see. You stop doing what no longer aligns."

In a previous book, The Gap and the Gain, Dr. Hardy discusses the difference between being in the "gap," by which he means the space between where you are now and where you want to be, and the "gain," by which he means everything you've transcended and learned from to get where you are today. Inside the arena," so to speak, is where all progress is made. You can't develop your capabilities on the sidelines, and since mastery takes a long time to achieve, any delays that you experience limit your potential by giving you less time with which to work. Dr. Hardy uses the extreme example of Viktor Frankl, whose contextual purpose was to survive the Nazi prison camps of World War II. That was his immediate concern, and so his contextual purpose was to make sure that he survived, and to help as many other people survive as possible. Only through imaging a Future Self with improved skills may we be able to motivate, plan, and execute the honing of skills through deliberate practice." -Shaping One's Future Self

Without question, taking ownership of your time demands commitment and courage. Busy can be a comfort zone despite knowing you’re being ineffective. If you get clear on your Future Self, and invest specifically toward your Future Self, you will become incredibly successful. You'll experience the compound effect in knowledge, skills, money, and relationships. But with this increase in success, you will face surprising complexity. To guard against collapse requires clarifying your Future Self at each succeeding stage. Success breeds a barrage of distractions and lesser goals. Without remaining clear on what truly matters, you'll become internally divided on what you're committed to." Dr. Hardy explains that everything you do can be categorized as either a cost to or an investment in your Future Self. Eventually, all of those costs and investments add up to the Future Self that you can't help being. We create our Future Selves in the here and now with the choices we make. When you know something is yours, you act differently than if you don’t know. A salesperson who knows they are going to make a sale behaves differently than the salesperson who wants to make a sale. Anyone who wants to change the meaning of their past by imagining it as the stepping-stone to a greater futureThe quality of connection you have with your own Future Self determines the quality of your life and behaviours now. Research shows that the more connected you are to your own Future Self, the wiser decisions you make here and now. Contemplating your Future Self, you’re more likely to invest in and set yourself up for an abundant retirement, exercise and eat healthier, and you’re less likely to engage in delinquent or self-defeating acts. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home Heaven lies about us in our infancy." -William Wordsworth Without specified goals, flow is extremely difficult because goals create constraints within which a person can focus. If you have absolutely no objectives for your day, how could you possibly know where to focus?