When you look to the future what do you see? Do you see a wide-open possibility, or do you see more of the same? Sadly many men see more of the same. They may think of something they may like to do but never go past that point. They have a fleeting thought, enjoy the feeling that thought has, and then let it go.
They may mark the reason as to why they don’t do it as being unrealistic, or silly. Then they lose the great feeling of possibility and settle back into the comfortable feeling of mediocrity. It is a sad state indeed.
This is often why men find themselves in various states of discontent in their lives. They aren’t going to do quests. Men aren’t trying to better themselves. They become afraid of trying something new out and seeing what results. It could be an absolute disaster or it could be tremendous. You don’t know for sure. You just have your thoughts on the topic and that is it.
Thoughts create your results
Henry Ford said whether you can or you can’t you are right. This sums up the whole Thoughts that create your results. If you think your dream is going to ruin your friendship then guess what it will. If you believe that your dream will tighten your friendship? Yeah, it will.
If you can see what your future would be like IF you were successful you would find better chances at that dream happening. All because you took the time to dream and allowed yourself to start becoming accustomed to the thought that you are going to be successful.
You see, our brains don’t like change. So if you decide that you are going to take the chance and risk some skin off your nose. Then you have to allow your mind to get used to the idea that you are going to start changing your life. This does time. It actually takes all the time needed for you to make it to your goal. When will you fully believe your thoughts? When you make it to that goal.
Going from place A to place B takes a set of skills. Then a different set of skills to get from B to C. Each of these substeps are changes in how you operate and process your life.
So you will be using your brain a lot as you follow your dreams. Your brain will throw a fit from time to time. You will get frustrated and want to quit but that is your brain wanting you to go back to where it was comfortable.
You never did that before
One of the biggest excuses you will make is with your past thinking. So often we want to think we can’t do something because we haven’t done it before. You’re right, you can’t do it because you haven’t done it. You couldn’t walk until you did. You could ride a bike till you did. The difference is that you believed you could walk and you wanted to walk badly enough that you were able to get past the bumps and bruises and solid thumps on your butt. You kept at it till you could walk. The same goes for riding a bike. You wanted to ride that bike. You never rode a bike by yourself till you scraped a knee and an elbow and probably racked your crotch on the support bar a few times. Yet the feeling of accomplishment was all-encompassing on the day you started rolling all on your own.
You never did a lot of things till you do. So why do we use this as an excuse and why do we buy our own lies by saying that we have never done that before?
Looking into the past keeps us from looking into the future. That is where you want to be. In the future view life, not the past. The past is painful, while the future is glorious.
What will other people think?
Many people have many thoughts. Those thoughts are thoughts about them not about you. So why again do we concern ourselves over the thoughts of our family members and neighbors? If you ask them what they think they will be more than glad to share their thoughts. Yet those are their thoughts, not yours.
Yeah, it is good to take advice from others from time to time but you have to remember that they don’t have your vision. They don’t have your drive. So yeah it may be terrifying to them to put themselves out there. Then they want you to be safe because they don’t want to face the discomfort of the thoughts they may have if you don’t succeed.
I recommend you tell everyone your plans but then let those other folks have their own thoughts. Accept that they wouldn’t do it the way you are going to do it and that their ideas may work for you or against you. However, both will be out of love.
Yes, there are going to be those who will talk bad about your endeavors yet that is because you are taking more action than they have taken so they are going to have the unpleasant feelings of not succeeding. They will hold grudges against you for simply dreaming. That is from their own fear of dreaming. They may get jealous of you making steps and they may even actively cheer your demise.
This is where you have a choice: you can let that negative be a brake or a throttle on your pursuits. Your choice.
So what do you want your future to be?
So let us say you are on board with me here, and you want to step out of the comfort cave and see what lays ahead. The first is pretty fun. Let yourself dream. Think big. No Bigger. No Even bigger! Yeah, when you start to get a little nervous you are in the ballpark. I’m still trying to figure out how to make $100,000 in a year. That price sounds pretty cool but that $100,000 is just level one for me. I see 1 million as not possible, and it’s not because I haven’t made it yet. I am still climbing the mountain. Because men I want you to know it is possible.
So write down 50 things you want to do. Make them huge. Make them small. Maybe you have a favorite car you want to own. Write it down. Once you have 50 things written down choose 10 that you want to start aiming for. Then choose one from that ten.
Then start dreaming about what it is like. When you make it to that point. What color is the car? Where do you drive it? What does it smell like? Get as fine-grained as you can. Examine how you feel when you have it. Capture that feeling. That is the rocket fuel for your quest.
Be just fine with the many failures you are going to have.
As you dream, notice all the different thoughts you have. Especially the thoughts that seem to tell you why you shouldn’t do it. Those are your obstacles. Those are the thoughts you have to work to overcome. It will be a battle as you get everything else in order. If you don’t get your thoughts corrected those will be your results. Remember your thoughts create your results. So there is a lot of cleaning you have to do around your thoughts as you get further and further along the line to your end goal.
How do you look into the future?
Some guys may wonder, how do you look into the future? You don’t have a black mirror or a crystal ball so how does this work? Latterly.com has a post that helps you through the thought process of visualizing. There are 3 things the author says you need to do. These are…
- Express Gratitude
- Release expectations
- Visualize your future self
Express Gratitude
This is the first step of cleaning your thoughts. Many people will believe that once you get to your goal that your problems are over. That’s far from the truth. If you don’t have gratitude for the aspects of your life right now you will struggle when you make it. That is because you will not have dealt with the problems in your current life and those problems will follow you.
So show gratitude for the current job. Be grateful for the interactions with the people in your life. Clean your thoughts up over your now so you have a tremendous future.
Release your Expectations
This is centered around how you are going to get your goal accomplished. Many men fight the process. They know the way they want to go but sadly the bridge is washed out in that direction. This will often cause burnout and they will give up.
If you trust the journey and allow the process to work with you, by giving up how you expect to get to your goal you will find the adventure something worthy of a movie.
Visualize Your Future Self
This is where you see in your mind’s eye where you are going to be. As I mentioned earlier. Get as specific as you can. Add as much detail for your mind to work on as you can. You may not know how you’re going to get there but you will. Especially when you get as detailed as possible.
If you want help with seeing your future or you want coaching on a difficult part you can reach out to me and We can talk it out.
