Your future, specifically whether or not you can visualize your future and have dreams for your future, plays a big role in who you are and what you do today. 

On one hand, when we don’t have a clear future in mind for ourselves, we can feel stuck or purposeless. 

On the other, people who do have a clear vision for their future are often pegged as being dreamers and having their heads in the clouds. 

Adding a deeper layer, how do you cope with things that have happened in the past that affect your present? And how do you be a forward-focused person without neglecting the importance of today? 

Those who experience the most success are able to visualize their future while still living in the present, understanding that their actions and habits today impact who their Future Self will be. 

Being a forward-focused person means living for the future, not living in the future. Living for the future means you have a clear vision of what needs to be done today in order to be the person who achieves your short-term goals and long-term dreams. 

Living in the future means you already feel like you’ve made it and thus have nowhere else to go. And maybe that’s where we’re going wrong. 

Maybe we haven’t found success in our lives because we’ve lost vision of our futures by trying to live in the future. 

To see if you do this, I’ve outlined the four most common ways people live in the future. 

Future By Association 

Future By Association is when you feel like you’ve made it because you see or are surrounded by people who have made it. You start to act like them, adopting their lifestyle and habits. This means that even if you’re nowhere close to having made your short-term goals and long-term dreams a reality, you’re living as if they are. 

For example, you may live at home with your parents, who are approaching retirement. They’ve just bought 20 acres of land and completed building their dream house. Not only that, but your mom just got the sports car she’s always wanted, and your dad has his own garage he’s setting up with all his power tools, TVs, and even a ping pong table. In the evenings after work, they relax in the hot tub, and on the weekend, they take mini vacations to the lake. 

By living at home with them, it’s easy to feel unmotivated and uninspired. You sleep every night in their brand-new luxury house, have your own bathroom, and they pay for your dinner every time you go out to eat. Their lifestyle starts to become yours, even though they’ve worked tirelessly for the past 20 years, saving money to live this way. And you’re only just starting your career, having landed your first 9 to 5 last month. 

Future By Association is like eating an apple. Someone else did all the work of growing and tending to the apple tree but you get to enjoy all the benefits. This can happen not only with family but with friends too. If you have friends who have stable jobs, houses, significant others, or have achieved any goal you also hope to achieve, by spending time with them, you start to adopt their lifestyle as your own and get comfortable. 

Future By Association makes you unmotivated to create something for yourself because you already have all that you need and want by associating with people who already have what they need and want. It leaves you in a rut that you’re unable to escape. Those who live in the Future By Association lose the vision for their own future and the motivation for how to get there.  

Future To Escape

Another way people live in the future is by using their visualized future as a way to escape their reality. Whether it’s objectively good or bad, if someone feels stuck in their present, they may try to escape their reality by living in the future. This goes hand in hand with the ‘Once-Then’ mindset discussed in the introduction of this book. 

“Once I get the promotion at my job, then all this hard work will be worth it.”

“Once I have enough money to get my dream house, then I’ll be happy.”

“Once I find the right person, then I’ll feel whole.”

Those who think this way may not realize it, but they're using the idea of their future to escape the reality that they face in the current moment. They’re putting all of their eggs in one basket- the basket of their future. 

Why can’t your hard work already be worth it because of the skills you’ve gained and the person you’ve become in the process?

Why can’t you find happiness right now despite the fact that you don’t have enough money for your dream house?

Why can’t you feel whole on your own?

There are many ways you can use the future to escape reality, not just by having the ‘Once-Then’ mindset. You can fantasize about your future or certain situations and create fake scenarios that feel better than your current, real scenario. You can plan so much for your future, trying to iron out every detail that you end up getting caught up in the idea of your future rather than the reality of your present. 

Those who use their future to escape lose the connection between their present and their future. The path becomes blurry as they try to live in the ideal future but don’t do what’s necessary in their present reality to make it true. You’ll be stuck always wishing and waiting for more instead of being content with where you’re at and pushing yourself to be better because you know you have more potential. 

Future By Comparison

Future By Comparison is where you see yourself as further ahead of others, so you perceive yourself as living in the future comparatively. When you visualize yourself, you think that the path you’re on is better than the path others are on and that, by comparison, you’re ahead of them because of it.

Future By Comparison leaves you in the rat race for success. You’re constantly taking other people’s achievements and comparing them to yours to try to gauge where you’re at in the race of life. Every move you make is in an attempt to get ahead of others or be perceived as being ahead of others.

Living in the future by means of comparison can distort the vision you have for your future and make you think and feel that you’re on the path to success, whether or not it’s objectively true. If you think your path is the right path, you’ll always feel like you’re ahead of others and that every choice you make progresses you further. This mindset also discourages you from considering different paths because you’re so caught up in thinking that the path you’re already on is the best one. It can leave you blind to different paths that could potentially be more efficient, lead to better opportunities, or be something you didn’t even know you wanted or would be good for you. 

Those who see themselves as living in the future by comparing themselves to others are trying to reach their future goals and dreams for all the wrong reasons. If your motivation is rooted in external factors like out-pacing your peers, then it’s only a matter of time before you come crashing down because anything that is externally motivated is never sustainable. 

Future To Impress

Future To Impress is when you talk about all the things you’re going to do in order to impress people. It creates a sense of achievement when you get the verbal affirmations of others which makes you feel like you’re doing great things without actually doing anything at all. 

An example of this is talking to your friends about the detailed plans you have to start an online side hustle. You talk to them about all the great things you plan to do with this business and how you think about scaling it. Everyone thinks it’s a great idea and tells you that what you’re doing is really great. But in reality, you haven’t taken any actionable steps to start your business… you’ve just been thinking and talking about it. 

By constantly telling people what you plan on doing and getting their verbal affirmations, you’re reveling in the glory of work not done, dreams not achieved, goals not met. Just like Future by Association, you’re getting the benefit without doing any of the work. And the more you reap the benefit of work you haven’t actually done, the less likely you are to do the actual work. 

Living in the future to impress others acts as a blockade to you actually taking the steps needed to achieve your short-term goals and long-term dreams. You’re creating a show of smoke and mirrors, but when you pull the curtain back, you realize nothing is actually there. Those who live in the Future To Impress at trying to live out their future for others, not themselves. 

Living For The Future 

Living for the future rather than living in the future allows you to leverage the ability to visualize your Future Self and understand the steps you need to take today in order to achieve that. When you live for the future, the actions, habits, and words you speak today have a new meaning. 

They’re no longer just things you do today that affect you today, but now they’re things you do today that affect you tomorrow. 

Think about it this way. Your Future Self can be the janitor of your Past Self and actions, having to clean up the messes you’ve created for yourself. 

Similar to when you get drunk and have a hangover the next day, fail an exam because you didn’t study well enough for it, or miss the deadline for an important project at work. Now, you have to spend your time remedying your hangover, trying to get extra credit to boost your grade, or apologizing profusely to your boss. 

Or your Future Self can be the CEO of your Past Self and actions, reaping the rewards of working today for a better tomorrow. 

Similar to when you finally run a 6-minute mile or get the internship you interviewed for or the raise you worked hard for. Now, you get to spend your time as a physically healthy person, which will lead to a longer life, you get to learn new skills at your internship that will lead to a good job, or you get a fatter paycheck that lets you travel more. 

When you live for your future, the connection between your Present Self and Future Self is strong and clear. 

You understand that your present actions and habits dictate your future actions and habits. You realize the importance of pushing yourself today so you can be better tomorrow. You know that even the smallest decision you make can have lasting ripple effects throughout your life. 

When you live for the future, you no longer desire to live in your past. You become more accepting of your past, understanding that it doesn’t have to dictate your future. You become more content with your past, understanding it as a learning experience and taking from it nothing more. 

Living for your future describes the complex relationship between your past, present, and future. It emphasizes the relationship between your present and your future more than your present and your past. 

It makes clear the direction of your life whereas the past can make it hard to even move forward. 

When you live for the future, your future self is so clear that it shines brighter than your past self.