With a title like that you might be thinking, ‘What on earth is he talking about…leverage your future self?’. Well, bear with me and I’m confident it will make sense and pay off for those who read on.
Firstly, Happy Fathers Day to all the Fathers out there. On this day of showing appreciation to our fathers, I encourage you to answer the following question in your own mind –
What is a lesson, piece of advice or example from your dad that has shaped you into the person you are today?
For me, it’s been the lessons of work ethic, entrepreneurial endeavour and family focus that I have absorbed through my Dad leading by example, and in him sharing his stories of business.
So back to the quirky title of this post, and it leads on from this theme of getting advice. For this week’s post I wanted to revisit something I wrote and shared around this time last year. Instead of thinking about advice from your father, or a mentor figure, we’re going to delve into advice from your future self. The two techniques I’m going to share will require you being a little more open minded and certainly being proactive….if you’re interested, and if so I’m confident it will serve you well. They come courtesy of Darren Hardy, one of my favourite authorities in the personal development and business leadership space.
As we fast approach the midway point of 2020, I am turning this exercise on myself in thinking about the second half of this year and beyond.
TIP #1: YOUR BEST MENTOR IS YOU 10 YEARS FROM NOW
Here’s how to leverage that concept – add 10 years to your current age and fast forward in your mind to that time. Visualise how you are living out your best life ie what you have already accomplished, what you are now working towards, how you speak, how you act, what behaviours you demonstrate, what choices you make.
The you 10 years from now, knows exactly what to do right now. So, if you’re up for it, take the time to visualise the future you, and in your minds eye ask questions of your future self and take your own advice.
As Hardy advocates, “Your goal is to live up to the person your 10 year future self knows you can be.”
So in the context of your own property investing journey, what does this look like? Are you wondering what your next move should be? Are you re-setting your goals based on our new reality? Or maybe it’s your first move in property that’s the question. You might be wondering what property strategy to allocate your time, energy and resources to. The answers will come by asking yourself things like how you want to be involved in your property business, the kind of conversations and activities you want to engage in, and how it all aligns with your highest values and your financial goals. Only you can answer those questions and in particular your 10 year future self will know what to do now. Give it a go.
[By the way this is a more customised take on another effective exercise you may have heard about where you can visualise your own private boardroom of advisors and you choose whoever you want sat round the table ie Branson, Gates, Bezos, Buffet, Huffington…. and you imagine what advice they would give you.]
TIP #2: GIVE YOUR FUTURE SELF A GIFT
This second tip is super effective for helping you deal with tough ‘in the moment’ decisions. For example, you’ve got an hour scheduled in your diary to call and email leads to generate direct bookings to your serviced accommodation properties – you could get stuck into those calls or you could start google researching various search terms to ‘kid’ yourself you are busy.
Everyone will have their own version of this in their business and personal lives. In the moment you are doing battle with emotions to overcome this and give your future self a gift ie in the example above it would be the gift of more direct bookings. In other words you want to be thinking, how can I be a hero to my future self by doing X task in the present.
A simplified example might be that even though you are tired after cooking a big meal for the family, by clearing the kitchen before bed you can wake up to a fresh start the next morning (your future self will thank you for it, especially when the head is a little dusty from the night before 🙂 ).
What you’re doing is flipping the conversation in your head so that instead of the task being drudgery in the moment, it feels honourable because you are not putting off something your future self will have to deal with later.
This is not rocket science, it’s the essence of delayed gratification. You’ve heard it before packaged in different ways but more often than not we need reminding of what we know more than we need new information, and sometimes hearing it from a slightly different perspective is what it takes to finally action it.
I recall a quote I first heard from Dan Pattrick, of Dapatchi, which really resonated with me, and it follows the same message. Here’s the quote –
“Do something today that you will thank yourself for tomorrow”.
Can you imagine the positive ripple effect from being intentional about living that quote each day?
What are you going to do today as a gift to your future self (and if you have kids, as an example that will shape them)?