It’s almost like watching a movie.
Imagine you’re a strong-willed, financially responsible, physically active, emotionally balanced person who wakes up in clean, white bed sheets in a cosy apartment somewhere in the city and goes for morning runs and travels and eats good food and the occasional doughnut without feeling bad and spends their days doing what they love while staying sane and fostering healthy relationships.
Unrealistic?
Well, imagine being someone who pays the bills before they’re overdue, replies to their messages in reasonable time, doesn’t notoriously overspend without depriving themselves of their favorite hot beverage in a coffee shop or the second drink on a night out.
Imagine being someone who doesn’t constantly sabotage their happiness thinking they’re not good enough for love or their own life.
Imagine being someone who pays attention to that gentle inner voice nudging them into the right direction instead of ignoring it until it screams.
Can you see yourself becoming this person one day?
Good, because you are that person. You just have to realize it. You aren’t magically going to turn into this content, healthy, connected, aligned human being unless you start being it now.
The truth is, being and becoming are essentially the same thing. There is no “future you”. There never was. There is only now, there is only you, and that’s it. There is no point to get to.
We cannot become our “future selves” until we start translating them into our current reality.
To do this, I’d like you to imagine in minute detail how your ideal self would think, how they would speak and move, how they would feel in their body, what they would do on a day to day basis, how they would treat themselves, their family, their friends, or their romantic partner.
I’d like you to think about the way your most authentic self would dress to feel confident and comfortable. I’d like you to think about how you will organize your space, how you will make your bed in the morning. The feeling in your chest you want to wake up to. The color of the coffee mug you’re holding as you walk through the apartment you decorated to your taste. The kind of books piled up on your nightstand, the kind of food you eat. How you make money and what you spend it on, how you alternate productivity with pleasure. The kind of people you surround yourself with, and how you handle being on your own. What kind of person you would fall in love with, and what kind of person would fall in love with you.
I’d like you to imagine what it would feel like to live like this person, and then ask yourself why you don’t.
The thing is, it feels good to fantasize about our ideal lives, as it distracts us from where we currently stand. It soothes our ego to think that we are capable of more, that we could do better, that we have potential.
Anyone can dream. Anyone can think of a better, happier, more successful version of themselves. Vision is not the issue, being is. Thinking like this person, acting like this person, speaking like this person, loving like this person is.
We have to give ourselves permission to be exactly who we want to become, then start being that. We have to give ourselves permission to live the life we want, then start living it. We have to give ourselves permission to love the way we want to be loved, then love ourselves.
Stay present as you allow yourself to change. It can be tempting to get lost in the pursuit of an unattainable, idealized version of ourselves, sabotaging true, sustainable growth. We can only ever start where we are and go from there.
All of this takes time. We don’t change overnight, and we don’t have to. Be gentle with yourself. It takes patience to manifest the changes you wish to see in your life and to materialize the things you desire to have, but the mindshift happens today. It happens now. It happens as you read this.
Close your eyes and picture yourself living the life you want and deserve. Do one thing differently today—one thing that your best self would do, no matter how small. And another one tomorrow.
That way, you gradually align the person you are with the person you want to become and realize that what separated you from them was yourself all along.