Get Out of the Rut - Episode # 19
Unlocking Your Future Self
Hey guys. Welcome back. Okay. What if I told you that the key to transforming your life doesn't really lie on changing the circumstances, but actually changing who you are becoming? This topic blew my mind a few years ago, and I have been obsessing over this since. Today, I really wanted to talk to you about the science of future self and what this is, why this works, and how we can start using this to break out of feeling that rut.
The main thing I wanted to point out, even before we start talking about this, is that there are two sides of this. coin, right? The future self work. There's the science of the future self. That's what I wanted to talk to you. But then also there's a little bit of the art, right? We don't just do the science of like how this works.
And I think a lot of times the art of the future self gets a little bit mixed up with love, attraction, with positive thinking, kind of like that. That's why before I even get into this side of the art of future self, I wanted to really come in and explain. I'm going to explain what is the science of the future self work and why that works.
If you don't know me, my name is Thais Glenn. And as I just said, I have been studying the future self work for many years. I fell in love with this concept with one very specific example that happened in my life. And I will share with you guys here today. But what really What got me thinking and got me amazed at this work is that I completely changed my whole life without changing anything externally.
For many of the women that I work with, that typically comes and wants to do this work with me, they have absolutely everything that they could possibly want. They have a beautiful family. They have a successful career, or at least their partners do have a really great career. They have the financial stability.
Everything seems to be very great. But yet they feel stuck in a rut, right? That's how I call it. That was the best word I could describe is that it's that rut. It's every day, the same thing, every day, the same old, same old. And sometimes that happen in different areas of your life. It doesn't need to necessarily be that whole thing.
Maybe it's in their marriage, right? They, maybe everything is great. They have this amazing husband. They feel like something is missing. They feel stuck in their marriage or maybe it's the career. They have achieved everything that they wanted. They have studied everything that they needed to study, but then they feel in, inspired or even in relationships with themselves.
I think for me, when a coach asked me this question, it's like, okay, what is in between you and your goal? And I really should, I had to take this deep breath. I was like, it's me. I am in between me and the goal. There's nothing else holding me back. And then you get stuck in this toxic cycle of self doubt and it's really hard to get out of it.
That's when you understanding the future self, like the science of future self, is so helpful. That was clearly the key to get me out of that rut and today I'm going to show you how you can unlock this whole new reality for yourself too. The concept of future self isn't just about daydreaming about this person that you wanted to be.
It's actually a science backed approach to transformation. Research has shown that people who have a clear vision of their future and their future selves, just, they do make better decisions. They stick to goals. They live a more fulfilling life. It's not just having the vision, right? But when you're able to really see the clear vision of your future, but where you belong to it.
And I think this is a lot of the work that this future self identity work would do, is that not only that you can create this beautiful vision, but you are in it. You are part, you belong to that vision. Let me tell you the first time that I heard this wasn't even in the coaching world. It's about 10 years ago, or maybe even a little bit longer.
My husband was working very hard to get promoted. He was, going to the office earlier. He was taking classes. He was doing everything that he could possibly do to get promoted. But that was just not happening. He kept getting passed over promotions. He kept, um, seeing other people advance and he wasn't there yet.
And eventually he went to his boss and he asked, he's like, okay, what is going on here? Right? Why am I not being able to get promoted? Why all those people, sometimes even with less experience, why are they getting promoted and they are rising up? But I am not. And he knew that his work was high quality. He knew that he could get promoted, but he wasn't.
So he asked the boss, right, why it's not happening. And his boss said something that at first, when we first heard that, we were like, that makes no sense whatsoever. And this is what he said. You have to be that portfolio manager. That's the promotion that he was looking for. You have to be a portfolio manager even before you get promoted.
You have to do the work as if you were a portfolio manager, right? And then eventually the titles just catches up to you. And we just looked at each other when my husband was home and telling me all this story, it was like, that is such a BS. That makes no sense whatsoever. Why would you possibly be doing work that is not even yours?
And then hoping that one day when they decide to promote you, you get promoted. So we were feeling very frustrated when this first conversation started. But then, as we sat down with this, and we were just like, trying to understand a little bit more of what those words actually meant, we realized that this wasn't about him doing the work, right?
It wasn't the doing the job, because, truth be told, he was already doing it, most of the work. He had to start thinking like a portfolio manager, showing up as if he already had the role. And the moment he did that, the moment he understood how the thinking really affected how he showed up, everything changed a few weeks, or maybe a month or so after the whole thing, he got promoted.
He was able to shift his identity so much just because of, of how he starts seeing himself even before the title. And then I started applying the same principles to myself. And the first thing that I did was that I was with my waist and then I started asking myself, what would it be? Like, what would that version of me be?
The head already lost the weight today. What would she be doing right now? And then I was like, Oh, okay. She would be eating these types of food. She would be exercising this way. She would. All of a sudden, I was like, Oh, yes, for me, I had decided that for me, my future self, who had already lost the weight, she was a runner.
And then I started to identify myself as such. And how I did that, because I wasn't running. I can guarantee you that when I start with the identity of I am a runner, I wasn't going outside and running. But I was. You know, getting a new shoes that it was for runners. And then I went outside and went for a little walk.
And then I would try to, you know, pace a little bit faster. And then I downloaded an app that was for, you know, to help you become a runner. And all of that, in my mind, I was starting to think like a runner, right? And then I would do a 15 second run. That's how bad of shape I was. I did a 15 second and I was like, wow, look at me.
I am becoming this person who runs. I am that person who runs because I just did. And as the identity was shifting. Right? The actual running, the action of running caught up to me. The same thing happened when I was building my business, my coaching business. I had to decide first, the time that I was using to tell myself that I was trying to build my business, I kept on trying to build the business.
When I decided to show up as a successful coach and I wanted to speak like a successful coach and dress like a successful coach and have programs like a successful coach. And then all of a, when I say all of a sudden, it's not that it was, Oh, I woke up and I was fully booked, but truly it felt like. The reality was really catching up to me because I was already that successful coach.
And I do have a full practice right now with waitlist because I have more clients that I can take care of at this minute in my career. But I had to become that person mentally first. I had to show up to my coaching sessions. in such a successful way where sometimes I only had one client and that one client was talking to her friends about me and, you know, some of them actually ended up working with me.
That's how everything changes outside of you to match the goal that you have, to match the identity, the new identity that you're creating. But truthfully, everything first changes within yourself. It changes when you become your future self, right? When you start being that future self right now. So let me talk to you a little bit, like a better explanation of what is the science of the future self.
Future self is simply that version of you that already exists in the future. But here's the catch. Who that person becomes is entirely shaped by your actions today. Psychologists have found that when people have a strong, vivid sense of the future self, they make better choices in the present. It's not just a wishful thinking, right?
This whole sitting back and waiting the universe to work in your favor. It's a mental exercise that literally rewrites your brain to make decisions in alignment with your goals. Dr. Hal Hirschfeld, he's a researcher in this topic. Found that when people vividly imagine their future self, they're more likely to save money now, to make healthier choices and take actions to set them up for long term success.
To become your future self. It's not just about changing what you do. It's really shifting your identity. Your identity is how you see yourself. It drives your behavior. If you see yourself as someone who is bad with money, you make financial choices that reinforce that belief. And if you see yourself as someone who, I don't know, struggles with weight, right, you act accordingly.
You act as someone who does have, struggles to lose weight. But when you shift the identity to match with that future self idea that you have, that vision that you have, your behaviors naturally flow. One of the things that I really like to use the future self work is to achieve goals, but it's very different than how most people teach how to set up goals.
The traditional goal setting often fails because it focuses only on the outcome, right, without really addressing the identity. It's if I want to make, I don't know, 100, 000 in the coaching business, we are focused on that 100, the steps that you need to take to achieve Right. We get that goal and then we focus on the outcome, right.
Or the steps to achieve that goal, but we are not addressing the identity. That's a lot of times when the willpower comes in and you know, the willpower is not enough. I mean, I think we can all agree that you can really have a lifestyle change just by holding on. to real power. But with the future self approach, everything becomes very different because now it integrates the goal with the identity shifts.
It's not just about what you want to achieve, but it's who you are becoming that can potentially achieve that goal. And not just potentially, right? And many times it even becomes inevitable when you believe in yourself in such a way that you create the future self and you know exactly what you're doing, right?
Because you're becoming that new person who absolutely can have this, it becomes inevitable. James Clear in the Atomic Habits, he said, your habits shape your identity and your identity shapes your habits. When you start identifying as the person you wanted to be, your habits will naturally flow. So how do you start making these shifts today?
Here's a few simple ways for you to connect with your future self. The very first one that I recommend to every single person that I talk to is to start a journal from the perspective of your future self. Write about your life a year from now as if it has already happened. But what decisions did you make?
How do you feel? That's how you created in your mind the life that you wanted to have. You know, sometimes to the end of the year, sometimes right now I'm recording this in February. Think of February in 2026. What have you created by that time? Because now that is how you start to really create the vivid vision of your future.
And then you ask yourself, like, who is that person right there who has already achieved? And that's the second step that I would offer you right now. Ask yourself daily, what would my future self do? This is something that I do every single day for the last Four years or so. In my journaling in the morning, I ask myself, how would my future self, or how will my future self want to show up today?
Because the future self doesn't need to be the three years from now or a year from now. It's, you know, a couple of hours from now. That is my future self. And I get to decide today how that person wants to show up. So even right now that I'm recording this at three in the afternoon, I am already asking myself, how would my future self want to show up for dinner?
That we are going out with some friends tonight. Right? How would she want it to show up? Does she want to eat a salad or she doesn't care for today? She's taking a break. Does she want to get wings or she want, you know what I mean? You get to decide. So ask yourself, right? Before you even make any decisions, pause and ask yourself, how is that version of you who has already achieved the things you wanted to achieve would act?
The third step I would offer you. And I know many people talk about it, but I don't personally see a lot of people doing it. That's something that I personally have, uh, kind of trouble a little bit actually creating, but I offer it to you anyways, because I do think it's important. It's to create a vision board, right?
Not just with the things that you want, but with the images and words that represent who you are becoming. This is something that, again, I don't have printed my vision board, but I do it every year because I think it's very important for you to understand what are the things that you want. And again, not just things that you want, but things that represent who you are becoming.
I want to become a thinner person this year. I want to take better care of my health. So as I start thinking about this, I want to have some images that will remind me. That, you know, the person that I'm becoming, I'm a person who's very healthy. I'm a person who's, you know, a runner and I wanted to be running every single day again.
So when I put those things out there, I need to have something that will remind me that that's where I'm going. This is who I am becoming. When you get all of these little steps that I just gave you, like having a journal, the journal will help you create the vision of the future self, right? You get this journal and then every single day you ask yourself, what is it that my future self would do?
Create the vision board that really reminds you of those things on a daily basis. I have a vase in my office. Where that vase is my future self's office. When I did a visualization of what my future self would have, the office she would have, she had a lot of gold and white in her office. And I went out and I found this little vase that, it's the same vase that I had in my vision.
I had never seen it before. Of course, I bought it. And I keep it in my Zoom so I can see it all the time. That it's there. It's reminding me. That as a business owner, I have a goal. I have a place that I'm going and I'm showing up as my future self every day. That's the power of having something that will remind you of who you are becoming.
But also it keeps you aligned and intentional to the things that you wanted to do. It reminds you how many times have you forgotten your goals? I see that all the time. I have done this a lot, especially before this future self coaching. Because I wasn't really focused on the person that I was becoming.
I was, I was focusing on the outcome that I wanted to create. And if I forget the outcome. There's nothing I can really achieve. But when it's on me and it's what I am, who I am, the identity, right? It's much easier for me to keep on working towards that. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever tried to connect to your future self?
Do you even know what she looks like? How she acts? Like, I would love to hear your thoughts on this one. You feel free to share with me on Instagram or sending an email. I would love to hear, like, have you done an exercise to actually visualize how that future self. would be like, and truly I want to invite you to take even the smallest action today.
Just one simple thing that you can start to connect with your future self. Many times you're the most simple step you can take is to start visualizing who that person is. I will link a blog post that I did a while back where I. ask you several questions about the future self. I even tagged for you a blog post that I have written many years ago about this future self and the creation of the future self.
What are the questions you can ask yourself that you can be onto of what does that person look like now? The future self who has achieved the goal, right? That person who already has the things that you are dreaming right now to have. Who is she? How does she speak? How does she act? How does she dress?
And just by answering those simple questions, really helps you create that vivid vision that will really guide you towards something. Sometimes I hear other people talking about being aligned with your goals, and it's like, yeah, but the main point of the alignment is the goal. You need to have something to be aligned with, right?
And this is what I believe it's one of the best tools for you to be aligned with yourself. Remember, that future self is you. It's not a crazy person that you're creating. It's you. It's just a better version, more polished version that you get to create. If you're ready to go even deeper in this work, I would love to have you inside of my program.
Please tag me on Facebook and feel free to message me on Instagram. That's where I hang out the most. And I would love to talk to you about my programs and how you can take this future self work even deeper in your life. So just a little. Takeaways that we talked about today, things that we explored. We talked about what the science of the future self is and why it matters so much.
How shifting your identity, not just your habits, leads to real lifestyle changes. We also talked about the difference between the future self work and the traditional goal settings. One thing that I would point out to this one that just came to my mind is that it's not one or the other, but I believe when you add the future self work with the traditional goal setting, you can go so much further.
And to be fair, it's so much more enjoyable because if you're just with the goal setting, right, like the smart goal settings and do something specific and measurable, it gets so boring. And when you are really working with the future self, it's not boring, it's exciting because you start to see all the changes that you are making within yourself.
Another thing that we talked today was some simple ways for you to start connecting to your future self today. I would love to hear. from you, how it's going for you, and how you're applying those things. Now remember, your future self isn't some faraway, unreachable version of you. She's already inside of you.
She's waiting for you to make those steps of becoming her. And every small decision you make, it brings you closer to that version. Okay, I hope you enjoyed this and I hope you love this topic as much as I do because I could talk about the future self work for the rest of my life. And next week we're talking about a little misconception that we have with when we talk about future self.
A lot of people think That future self is the same as law of attraction, right, where you sit down and you allow the universe to do the work for you, you imagine the things that you want, and it's not. It couldn't be more different. And I wanted to talk to you all about the difference between, uh, future self and law of attraction or even positive thinking.
It's not the same thing at all. But when we start to add the art of future self, it can sense the same enjoyment as when someone is working with the law of attraction. Okay, my friends, I will see you next week. Thank you so much for being here with me today and I will see you later. Much love to you. Bye bye.
