How To Create A Future Vision Of Yourself That Always Outperforms Your Past
The Strategic Coach Team
“A man without a vision for his future always returns to his past.” Unknown
What’s next when you’ve achieved everything you’ve ever dreamed of?
Many of us aspire to this level, but for the highly successful, this question brings with it a lot of self-doubt.
It’s normal to feel disillusioned when you’ve reached what you believe is the peak of your success. What you’ve been striving toward is now your reality, and the stakes are higher than ever before.
So how do you continue to grow in ambition and achievements?
What’s your next step?
Dan Sullivan knows that for many entrepreneurs, this can be a painful experience, one that prevents them from setting bigger and better goals. He admits, “Emotionally I can get very, very involved in certain situations, and then I can’t get over them.”
So what’s the key to overcoming this obstacle?
How do you grow beyond what once seemed impossible?
1. Ask “who?” not “how?”
One of the biggest mind blocks to setting higher ambitions is the question of how to get there.
“When people have bigger ambitions,” explains Dan, “there’s a lot of hows. They don’t know how to do everything that sits between them and their goals. This feels very negative and it stops them because they hate the idea of being loaded up with more hows.”
But the solution is simple: Find your who.
There will always be capabilities you don’t currently have. Instead of taking it all on yourself, find people who have the unique capabilities needed to achieve your goals. Collaborate with them and you’ll be able to take on much more than you ever could by yourself.
No matter how great your goal is, you don’t have to do it alone.
Want to break free from procrastinating on your goals? Get your free WhoNotHow ebook today and discover how to reach new levels of success.
2. Learn how to get really, really good at picturing the future vision of yourself.
In order to keep reinventing yourself, you need a clear vision of the future you.
You also need a lot of individual muscle and determination. We’re programmed with the mindset that once we reach 40 or 50, there’s less to do ahead of us than what’s already behind us.
It’s in recognizing that growth is always the game that you give your future self more power than your past self.
“You have to see your future self as a different person than your present self,” explains Dan. When you do this, “you can only hang onto the parts of your past that are useful to your future. The rest of your past has to disappear.”
This is what allows you to grow beyond your highest goals.
The more imaginative and far out the future vision of yourself is, the more self-confident you become.
3. Recognize that only the future you can solve your current problems.
The primary purpose of setting goals is to live a happier and more fulfilling life.
And to do this requires acknowledgment of where you stand right now.
“I always tell people,” says Dan, “you can never solve present problems in the present because it’s your present self that created the problems.”
When striving toward bigger ambitions, ask yourself: What habits are opposing the future you? Break these down to get closer to the future vision of yourself.
If you really want to meet your goals, you have to become a different person. You can’t hold on to influences from the past or ways of operating that have become too comfortable. They don’t want you to let go; they’ve worked out a comfort level with you.
To reach new feats, you have to shed it all and live in the pain and discomfort until you’ve attained a new normal. This is growth.
4. Get comfortable with the feeling of losing grip on your identity.
When you feel like you’ve lost momentum, ask yourself this question: How far can I go?
Regardless of your achievements in the past, there is always something brighter ahead. “No matter what I’ve achieved or what capabilities I’ve gained,” says Dan, “when I’m ready to make a major jump in my life, I acknowledge what I’ve done and I say to myself, ‘I wonder how much further I can go.’”
When you make the desire for growth a permanent part of who you are, you’ll always be seeking something new, even if you don’t know what the next step is.
This allows you to loosen the grip on your identity so you can find new levels of success.
Success comes down to how you imagine your future self. To ensure you’re always moving forward, take your cue from people who’ve become experts at reinventing themselves. It’s not your past that should define you, but your future.
So, who do you want to be? And where do you want to go?
