Who is your future self?

0:28Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. your mind, the most complex piece of machinery in the entire world, and a step-by-step process from getting yourself to, from self-sabotaging and holding yourself back to taking action and creating the life that you want. So once again, it's called Level Up, and you can buy it anywhere where books are available. Today, we're going to be talking about your future self. We're going to be talking about what I feel is one of the most overlooked parts of hitting your goals and trying to create the life that you want to. And I'm going to give you a tip that I think is really, really simple in personal development, but is often overlooked and I think might be the most important part of hitting your goals.

1:04And it might be the most important part for creating a life that you actually want. And, you know, sitting there and saying, oh, create the life that you want. It sounds corny, but it is actually true. You need to understand that you have to build yourself into the person that you want to be. You have to build yourself into the person that can create the life that you want to. You either do that or you settle for life and you settle for what comes to you. So you either settle for life or you actually go and create it. And so I want you to realize this before anything else. Your life as it is right now and everything that you have or don't have is your creation.

1:42Now realize that it might have been unconsciously created and now you've started to wake up to maybe wanting to be conscious in your life and create the life that you want, but everything that you have now, you have created through actions that you did or did not take in the past. And if you think about that, that means that your future, the future that you do have will eventually be a present moment that you have created. And so it is all your creation. You have created all that is around you. And most people are passively living their lives and just letting things happen to them. It's like they're just a passenger on a sailboat.

2:16And then one day they realize they're the only one in the sailboat and they've just been letting the tides and the winds of life take them wherever it's going to be versus stepping into the driver's seat and say, I'm going to steer this sailboat to where I want it to go. And so we're going to talk about how to create the life that you want through becoming the person you need to become. And I'm going to make it super simple. Where you are right now is where you are. That's it. In the future, there is where you want to be. Very simple, right? There's where you are now. There's where you want to be.

2:47So let's talk about one year from now and we'll talk about five years from now, right? So there's where you are right now and there's where you want to be in five years. Where do you want to be in five years? Have you thought about that? Have you thought and said, hey, by this day at this time, this is exactly what I want for my life. Have you ever thought about that? And have you not just thought about it, but have you written it down? If you have a pen and paper, if you're sitting around your house, write it down. Pause me if you need to. Where do I want to be in five years? What do I want my life to look like in five years?

3:19What is a life for me that would be a hell yes? A life that gets you excited. A life that gives you energy that you want to, when you think about it, it actually gives you energy. It makes you excited to think about that life. One thing that I always say, if you've been listening to podcasts long enough, is that you need to follow your energy. When you think about something and you plan it out, you want to make sure that it gives you energy. And if it gives you energy, you want to follow that energy. Follow the feeling of what would be an amazing life to you. If you're planning something out, you're planning out your future and it doesn't feel like a full fuck yes, like doesn't give you energy.

3:59I'm just going to be honest. It's not for you. For instance, if you're in a relationship and you say, okay, I've got to fast forward five years. What does that relationship look like in five years? Does that relationship feel like a hell yes? Or are you like, yeah, I don't know if I want to be in this relationship in five years. Do you feel like you want to grow alongside this person? Does that give you energy to think of growing alongside them in the next five years? Does it make you excited to be in a relationship with them in five years? If so, hell yeah, follow that energy. If not, But if it doesn't give you energy and feels maybe a little bit draining, the relationship needs to change.

4:41Either the relationship between you two needs to change, you and the person need to change in some sort of way, or you need to change and get out of the relationship and find one that does give you energy. And so it doesn't mean that you necessarily have to break up with the person, but the dynamics of the relationship could change. Maybe that gives you energy. And so it's about figuring out what is it that actually gives you energy when you fast forward into the future. Same with your job. How do you make money five years from today? Fast forward five years from today. Does it give you energy to think in five years, I'm going to be at this position.

5:15I'll maybe make a little bit more money. Maybe I'll get a promotion. If it does, awesome. Follow that energy. But for me, the last job that I worked back in 2015 for someone when I finally quit was I went, hey, if I fast forward five years from today and I get promoted a few times and I'm still in this company, is that exciting to me? And I was like, no, absolutely. Like red flag, I don't want to be here anymore. I went, okay, that means I need to leave this as soon as possible. Do you want to be making money in the same way? Do you want to be working for somebody else? Do you want to be having your own business and running your own business?

5:48What is it that you want? And so you got to start thinking about your life and start thinking about your relationships, start thinking about your job, the company, your employees, your friends, your body, your health, your children, your character, every aspect of your life and say, when I go through each one of these categories, what is a full hell yes for me? What is a absolutely, this is exciting. This is what I want to do in the next five years. And you start to plan it out. So pause me if you need to. If you're hanging out at your house, you have a pen and paper next to you, pause me, start to plan it out.

6:20Put your life down on paper because when it's on paper, it could be planned. And there's many, many studies that show that people that write down their goals tend to be more successful and more likely to hit their goals than people who don't. So you might as well pause me and just do it if you need to. If you're driving, obviously don't start writing. You can do this later on today if you need to. And then once you've figured out your five years, what you got to start to look at is what does the next 12 months look like for me? If this is the first year of the next five years, where do I want to be in 12 months?

6:50What do I want to be? If I look at it and I say, okay, each year is basically like a checkpoint. What's the checkpoint I want to cross over 12 months from today that show me that I'm on track for the next five years? Where do I want to be at that first checkpoint? Where do I want my relationship to be in a year? My job to be in a year? My company to be in a year? My employees to be in a year? My friends to be in a year? My body, my health, my children, my character? Where do I want those things to be in a year from today? And you plan out every aspect of your life, first off for the next five years and then for the next year.

7:25Where do you want to be 365 days from today? Now, here's the most important part that I think is often overlooked. Now that we've planned what we want our life to look like, the most important thing is to plan out who you need to be to create that life. Who do you need to be to create the life that you just wrote down on a piece of paper? Because once again, you're going to create the life, whether it's passively and not paying attention or whether it's actively and actually being very intentional with creating your life because often too much too often people tend to focus on what they need to do which doing things is important but what's more important is who you need to be to create the life because you will do things naturally when you are that person the person who can create that life will automatically do the things that need to be done And this has shown over and over again that planning out your future self is really important to create the life that you want.

8:25There's a theory called the self-concept and self-identity theory. And our self-concept, which is basically how we view ourselves, plays a massive role in our behavior, our motivation, and our self-esteem. And studies show that when people have a clear view of their future selves, they are more likely to make decisions in the present that align with the vision that they have for themselves, which leads to better life outcomes and more likely to be successful in accomplishing whatever that goal is. Do you get that? Do you hear me? Let me say that again. Our self-concept, who we think that we actually are, plays a massive role in our behavior, in our motivation, our self-esteem.

9:08And studies prove over and over and over again that when people have a clear and positive view of their future selves, a clear view of who they need to be, they're more likely to make decisions and act in the present moment as if they are that person, which leads them to more likely becoming that person. There's another theory called the self-discrepancy theory, and it suggests that people have three self-guides they call them. Number one is your actual self, which is who you are or who you think you are. Number two is your ideal self, who you want to be in the future. And number three is what they call the ought self, who you think you should be.

9:44And so when there's discrepancies between the actual self, the ideal self, or the ought self, it can lead to different emotions and less motivation. So the goal is to try to figure out, number one, who am I? Number two, who do I want to be? And number three, who do I think I should be? And the goal is to try to make those three selves align so that you're more likely to be motivated towards achieving what it is that you want. And so you actually want to figure out who am I? Who do I want to be? and who should I be? And actually see, can I make those three people start to line up every day and become more aligned with every action that I take?

10:23And so let me show you what I mean. When you look at your one-year goals, if you were to be that person today, you would already have the life that you want. If you look at your five-year goals, if you were that person today that could achieve that, you would already have it. So it shows you that building yourself is more important than building your life. Because as you build yourself, your life is a natural byproduct of that self. Because when you build yourself, your life will automatically happen. You will take those actions. And I'll give you an example from personal experience, right? I've been saying this for years, and the older I get, it becomes more and more true.

11:04The life I have now, I could not have had five years ago. I couldn't because I was not yet the person who could create this life. But over time I built myself and I built myself and I built like Tony Robbins says, I've seen him say on stage. He says, when you see this guy in front of you, I built this motherfucker. That's what he says. And you've got to see the same way of like, I'm building this self, this person that I am and me too. Like I've built myself over time. And I started thinking about it. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a busy person. Like I'm very busy. I've got a lot of things.

11:34I've got plate spinning. I've got this podcast. We just put the book out last week. We're creating a ton of content for podcasts, for social media, for TikTok. And I have my own coaching business, which we have at this point around 34 employees in the business. I'm in Austin. I travel all over the world. I go to different places a lot. I basically have three jobs. And then I also have my personal life. I've got my wife. I've got my life that I want to spend with her. I've got my health. I've got my personal development. I've got, you know, this whole process of learning how to fly a plane. Like I've got a bunch of different things.

12:09And one day it hit me. Like if I go back to Rob, when he started this podcast in 2015, and I look at Rob, if I were to take Rob from 2015 and plant him into today and try to run my business and run this podcast and run the life I have and run the relationship with Lauren and run all of these things. If I were to have Rob from 2015, transport into today and say, hey, take over, I would have had a mental breakdown. It would have been way too much for him because he was not enough yet. Not like bad. It wasn't a bad thing. I'm not saying good enough. I wasn't enough of the person yet to be able to run this life.

12:49But over time, I've built myself into the person who can have the mental, emotional, and physical bandwidth to hold all of it. I have not gotten better. I've not gotten worse. I have evolved over time and I've evolved into a new version of myself. And that's what's really cool about it is that it's not like I can't ever get the life that I want in the future. It's that if I see this amazing life in the future and I don't have it yet, it's because I haven't evolved enough and to be the person that can create it. And so the real question is, how can you evolve yourself every single day to be the person that create the life that you want to.

13:26Focus on building yourself while taking the action that you need to create the life. That's the most important thing. Don't just read the books and go to the conferences and listen to the podcasts and not take the action. The action needs to be taken. Like if you were to go to the gym every day for the next five years, you would have a better body. You would have bigger muscles. You would probably have less fat. you would be able to lift more because of the fact that you went to the gym every single day. So in five years, you'll just simply be able to lift more because you've been taking the action that you need to.

14:02And so when you look at your five-year goals, when you look at your one-year goals, who do you need to be to create that life? Who do you need to be? What action does that person take? And five years from today, if you were to plan out their entire day, what actions do they take on a daily basis? What habits do they have? What standards do they hold themselves to that you don't hold yourself to? How do they talk to themselves? How do they talk to others? How do they follow through with people that rely on them? What's their morning routine look like? What type of food do they eat? How do they take care of their body?

14:34How do they take care of their mind? How do they take care of the people around them? Who do they surround themselves with? And you start to get very clear on who this person is and who you need to evolve into. And you use that person as basically just the test to go, okay, well, I've got this decision I need to make. My future self in five years, what would they do if they were in my shoes right now? What actions would they take? And you start to focus on who you need to be and building yourself into that person while taking the action that you need to, which is important. You build yourself into that person and you take that action.

15:13So it's not just about looking at your goals and saying, what do I need to do? It's looking at your goal saying, what do I need to do? But most importantly, who do I need to become? Who do I need to evolve myself into? Because when I look at that goal in five years, the reason why I'm not there yet is because I haven't evolved into the person that can create that life. What do I need to do over the next five years? What do I need to do today to start to be more like that person? What do I need to do today to start to think more like them, to act more like them? And you basically kind of try it on as like a new t-shirt.

15:44I'm going to try to be this person for a day and just see if I like it. I'm going to try to take more action. I'm going to try to be more confident. I'm going to try to be more outgoing. I'm going to try to take more action to create the life. I'm going to go to the gym more often. Try that shirt on like it's a shirt and just say, hey, do I like the way the shirt fits? If you do, wear it tomorrow and just continue to step more into that evolved version of yourself. And if you do, you will look forward. you will look back, I guess, in five years. You'll look back and go, damn, I did actually kind of create the life that I wanted to.

16:11And so what you need to focus on, of course, is your goals. Of course, is what you need to do. But most importantly, is who you need to become so that you can build yourself into that person. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.