Change Your Future by Switching Out This One Word
The difference between “look” and “feel.”
So I know that’s a bit of a dramatic title. But this one little trick really can make a huge difference in your life if you let it. First, though, let me ask you a question.
Do you remember what you wanted your grownup life to look like when you were a kid?
I love asking people that question, because you get the most diverse answers. One of my friends told me she doesn’t remember having any specific dreams about the future. Another said she wanted to be a professional thinker (hey, me too!).
We are often asked to visualize our futures. It’s almost a cliché that at some point you’ll be asked where you see yourself in six months, a year, five years. Our perspective of the future is very conceptual. We are encouraged to think about what we want it to look like, in order to set goals we can then work toward.
What if instead we asked ourselves what we want our future to feel like?
To do this effectively, we need to eliminate all visual aspects of our answer. Our first reaction to this question is probably to imagine a situation, thing, or person we think will make us happy. Try cutting out the visual. Close your eyes and go into your body and ask it how it likes to feel. Pay attention to your body’s response when you ask it what feeling good is like.
For me, feeling good is a lightening and lifting in my chest, like I’m uncurling from a fetal position and throwing out my arms to embrace the sky, sun warm on my face. That’s how I want my life to feel like.
Now comes the challenging part. It’s tempting to want to embed your desired feeling back into a visual picture of all the stuff that’s going to make you feel that way. Resist this temptation! Nothing’s wrong with wanting things, but we’re trying to work a little mental magic here, so we need to de-link our desired feeling from our conceptualized futures. Instead, think about the things in your life that make you feel the way you want to feel now.
For me, it’s when I’m authentically who I am online in a way that leads to genuine connection with others. Or when I’m reading, researching, thinking, or writing. Or when I’m being my natural, unguarded and un-boundaried self with my dogs.
Now comes the easier part. Keep doing the things that make you feel the way you want to feel. Do them more. Do them every day. Find more things that make you feel that way. After a while, you’ll discover you attach your happiness less and less to the stuff you think you want, and more and more to the things you’re actually doing. You’ll have learned how to be in the moment rather than the imagined future.
But we still need or at least want goals, right? It’s difficult to live 100% in the present moment. Most of us are working toward something in life most of the time. Let’s take a look at how we can rewrite goals so they put us into the present moment rather than that imagined future.
Here are some of the things I think about when I am imagining what I want my life to look like:
Thousands of Instagram followers.
Money coming in.
More friends.
When we switch out that one little word, go from look to feel, it changes how we see things. Here are some things I think about when I am focused on what I want my life to feel like:
Having fun making dorky TikTok videos.
Challenging myself to develop a business that fits into a creative model rather than trying to fit my creativity into a business model.
Meaningful connection with other creatives who are putting their work out there.
See the difference? The second list of goals is both more specific and focused on how I feel. It is oriented around values such as having fun, challenging myself, and creating meaning for myself and others. Plus, these are all things that are already a part of my life. By doing this exercise, I’m learning how to value what I already have and training myself to focus on my feelings rather than acquisitions. This frees up my mind to find other creative and fun ways to continue to feel good about my life.
It takes practice to change how you think about your future, but if you work at it you’ll get to a place where you realize your happy future has arrived, and you’re already living it!