Most of us have two modes when we think about things:
- 1. the urgent, the right now, the emergency, the having to, needing to, wanting to, and the should. Pay the bill, pick up the kid, what to have for dinner, what am I forgetting?
- 2. the some day one day future. Retirement. Summer vacation. Getting married. When I have lost all this weight. When I’ll have my horse farm. When I have my retirement community that I built and I will be significant, and rich. When I’ll be a rock star.
I remember when it was like that for me. And, to be quite hones, it is still work to dislodge myself and think of the in-between.
Without working TOWARDS something, it is natural to fall into the same old, same old, or good enough is good enough. The rut.
I only have to observe myself for a day to see how fast it sets in, and how automatic that is.
I look at my income numbers for the past six months. It started with real poverty numbers: being at risk of not being able to pay my rent. Then I got all inspired,
I whip out my revenue graph, and I can tell when I went into “good enough” or complacent mode, and when I managed to bring up the future towards which I work… and work on it.
Or look at my apartment, harder to document, but the clutter is piling up again…
But you can only see clearly that you are expecting the results of a glorious future from work you didn’t do, when you have set a “glorious future”… preferably something which you can build a ladder, a staircase, a path to. Meaning: you kind of know how to get to.
I want to drive again. Is that a glorious future? Maybe not for you, but for me. I have been a shut-in, and I crave new visual experiences, I crave to be able to go where I want to.
I need a car. I need to renew my driver’s license. I need to save up to buy the car. And I want to be able to move, if and when I need to or want to… and for that I need to reduce my clutter.
Getting a car seems easier and more attainable, because adding has always been easier for me that taking away. Your machine may work differently.
I have to invent myself as a person who can and does throw stuff away if it is not needed. And someone who doesn’t buy new stuff…
I don’t know about you, but this is the hardest thing for me.
- For about a decade I had no future to work towards to… no future in which I was alive, so I just let the stuff pile up.
- For years I had so little energy, I was so deeply in survival, that I found it easier to buy more underwear than to go to the Laundromat and do laundry.
Now that I am getting well again, I notice how much clothes I have that I don’t need, that I never wear. I call that clutter.
Creating a future to guide you is an art. Not many people teach it, and not many people support it. But without it you are a floating boat… no place to go. Not bad, but not satisfying.
What gives your beingness in the present is the future you are living into. (Landmark Education)
It seems that you should be happy, fulfilled, by what is happening now… but it is an illusion. It is the future that you are building, that you are walking into, that you are anticipating, that gives you how you are, your attitude.
- I will always be a loser… says one unhappy person.
- No matter what I do, I will always be stupid… says another.
- I will never be liked…
- I will never have a fulfilling occupation
- Nobody will ever know what I am capable of
When you can actually hear what the “little voice” is saying, you can hear what the future you are living into. That is when you have two ways to react: with resignation, reaching for the TV remote, the food, the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, the depression, or alternatively to the pie in the sky daydreaming,
If you have created a future that is realistic AND yet inspiring, then, of course, you can tell the “little voice” to shut up. But otherwise, if you don’t have a future, the “little voice” rules.
When the famous motivational speaker, Jim Rohn, said to spend more time on improving yourself than on your work, he didn’t say, but he meant: work on your future self.
The person you are now cannot accomplish the future you hope for, the future that is inspiring enough to work towards.
If who you are is enough, then the future is not, it cannot be inspiring. And the mood you’ll have in your present is boredom, dissatisfaction, tedium… no one likes that.
I have a favorite saying: Fear is an opportunity to summon courage. Your fear of a future you are not a match to, not yet, is fear inducing. Big fear, small fear… all the same. Unless you are completely delusional, a variety of insanity, you should be afraid.
If you are not afraid, then you are either delusional, or you are just daydreaming.
Not being a match to what you want to do should be a daily occurrence for you, if you want to feel alive in your skin. Really.
Being comfortable is a prescription for unhappiness. So don’t be comfortable. Comfortable is for weaklings. Mush cookies. Pansies.
You don’t want to be that…
Now, what should you do first? My recommendation, this is what I did, get well, better than well, first.
Increase your health number, your energy number, to 30%. At 10% you don’t have enough energy to deal with discomfort, with the fear, with not being a match to what you want.
Your first step should be to find out where you are at in this regard. And then follow a proven path to get your numbers up to 30%.
You can start with your eating style. And then get your health measures, your food list, etc.
But get started.
The eating style is the most significant and yet the easiest to adjust. Start there.
If you go there before late tonight, you’ll be able to get a large discount on the other health offers I have. Large. Never to be repeated.
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