Dear future self, I’d like to see you more often.

Yesterday, I went to a book launch in Cape Town.

Expansive: A Guide to Thinking Bigger, Living Fuller, and Thriving in a Limitless World. One of the co-authors, John Sanei, closed the event by talking about something I think about often – our future selves.

Not the past version of us, not the autopilot we’ve been running. But the version we’re becoming. The one that holds our potential, not our patterns.

Research says around 75% of our thoughts today are the same as yesterday’s.

Think about that. If our thoughts shape our emotions, our emotions shape our choices, and our choices shape our lives – then most of us are reliving the past. Daily.

That’s not growth. That’s stagnation.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

I read another book a while back called Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today.

It talks about how people who actively connect with their future selves, build an actual relationship, tend to make better long-term decisions.

They eat better. Spend better. Lead better. Are more satisfied with their life’s journey. They feel more aligned. More on track.

So what does it look like to do that? How do we spend more time with the version of ourselves we want to become? How do we build that relationship with our future selves?

Here are a few practices that help:

• Write letters to and from your future self. Ask her for advice. Imagine what she’d say about your current path. Use chatGPT to help you out if you are stuck getting your imagination juices flowing.

• Use your future self as a decision filter. I do this every day. “How would my future self respond here? What would she eat for dinner? Would she say yes to this meeting? What would her calendar look like?”

• Try guided future-self meditations. This one’s new in my toolbox, and I love it. John Sanei created one called The Bridge. It’s about feeling, seeing, and embodying your future self today. You can try it here.

“Your future is not a place you go. It’s something you bring into the present.” – John Sanei

So here’s my invitation, dear self-leader,

Spend more time with your future self. Let her guide you. Let her interrupt the old loops. Let her help you grow into someone you’d be proud to meet.

Because if you don’t, you’ll just keep recycling yesterday.

And you, my friend, are not your past.