Make sure Present You takes care of Future You

Gosh, I wish someone had told me this many years ago. I’m very sure that a lot of people, especially who are around my age (retired or near retired), lived in a world where we pretty much just lived one day at a time. In fact, we were encouraged to take one day at a time. Yes, we had pension funds that we contributed to through our places of employment and some of us were intelligent enough to know that that money should be saved for our old age. Some of us were even intelligent enough to take out personal retirement funds and actually contribute to them right into old age.

But, I’m not really talking here of financial security for future you. And so you ask, what am I talking of then?

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Each and every decision that you make now is going to have an impact on your life down the line. Just think about that. Every decision, no matter whether it’s a decision that’s in your favour or a decision that is just so wrong for you. It is going to impact your life further down the line.

That goes for career, partnerships, relationships, where you choose to live, how many children you have, what car you drive, how you treat your body, how you treat yourself. The list can go on and on.

Societal pressure, particularly when we’re young, is so fierce. We are brought up to place weight on what others think. We place weight on the opinions of others rather than on our own opinion, on what we think, on what we believe to be best for us. We allow our partners to manipulate us into living where we don’t want to. We even allow our partners to manipulate us into having children, and whether or not we’ll work, or stay home and look after said children. Of course it sounds like I’m speaking only to women here, but for the most part, I think that women are so much more easily manipulated and also so much more inclined to be the one to make compromise.

Compromise can be a good thing, but it’s only good when it is something that both parties do. If one person in the relationship is always on the back foot, or putting themselves last, instead of standing equally, then compromise will soon lead to disappointment and resentment.

So coming back to present you doing things that will benefit future you, means that in every choice that you make, you should be thinking of yourself a few years from now. To the point that you even allow yourself to feel how you would feel a few years from now, should this present decision be taken now. Say for instance, you decide that you should no longer be living in South Africa, for whatever reason – you may feel discriminated against, you may feel there is no future in a country such as ours. If something happens to you, say you were hijacked, or attacked in your home, your knee-jerk reaction would be, “I’m leaving this country.” And of course, that’s very understandable. However, once the emotional response has come and gone, there is the reality of moving out of the country. You need to take into consideration where you will move to. You need to consider how this will impact you and your family, your friends and loved ones. Will you be leaving property behind?

Future you, for me, is in fact, much more important than present you. It’s not to say that you shouldn’t be aware of your life and how you are currently living it. Rather, I’m saying that you really do need to take into consideration that you’re going to be around for a long time. If you’re not happy with your life right now, then the decision to change it for the better becomes something that you should be focusing on now. Working out a plan of how you’re going to get from dissatisfied to happy and content. And that’s taking future you into consideration. If you don’t do anything about it, if you don’t put a plan of action into place, then future you will be living exactly like present you. Surely that’s not what you want! Unless of course, you’re completely content with where you currently are and see no need to make any changes. And even then, I would question myself and my motives.

Am I fearful of what could be? Am I just too lazy to put a plan in place? Is it because I have no idea of what that future me could look like, therefore, I cannot put a plan in place? These are important questions and you should be taking this seriously. If you don’t know how to get to future you, in a happy and contented state, I highly recommend that you find a life coach. Find someone to talk to that will help you to visualise a new and wonderful life. A life coach, and I speak from being a Spiritual Life coach, will be able to help you to equip yourself with the understanding of your life, the choices that you’ve made, your motives for making those choices and how they have affected you to date. A Spiritual Life coach will also give you the tools that you need to work towards future you.

So ask yourself this one question every day : What can present me be doing today, that will benefit future me? Write it down and then do it. Most important that you do it. Otherwise, you’re just keeping yourself in a state of believing that you’re doing something towards future you, when in fact all you’re doing is procrastinating and not allowing yourself to move forward. Sometimes it just means taking small steps, one at a time. One foot in front of the other, every day.

If you feel that you could benefit from the guidance of a Spiritual Life Coach, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me – my contact details are all over my website but just in case you haven’t seen them yet, whatsapp me 082 570 6473.

Take care and enjoy the rest of your day and thank you so much for listening.