“Do something today that your future self will thank you for.” ~Not sure who that is from but I love it.

First off, I apologize for this name-drop on the title. I have always considered it dangerous for the masses to normalize outliers’ outcomes. Amassing a more than 200-billion-dollar fortune in the 21st century is only factual to the founder of Amazon, therefore literally 2 people out of 7 billion thus far.

This article, however, aims to highlight how the 2021 Time’s Person of the Year can help the 2006 Time’s Person of the Year (yes, you) to be a good and thoughtful ancestor to your local family and global community by being a better version of yourself through your mind, plans and actions.

Mind

It all starts in your mind.

Let’s start with a reminder on the existence of two types of mindset: a fixed and a growth one. Ashley Cullins provides examples where she argues that a fixed mindset means you believe intelligence, talent, and other qualities are innate and unchangeable. If you’re not good at something, you typically think you will never be good at it. By contrast, a growth mindset means you believe such attributes can be developed with time, discipline, practice and effort.

Adopt a time-traveler mindset.

Once you fix your mindset on growth (pun intended), it is time to time-travel between the present and the future, back and forth as much as needed. In order to do so, it is required, as professional athletes, to practice some visualizations. Visualization in sports (or mental imagery) is a way of conditioning your brain for successful outcomes. The more you mentally rehearse your performance, the more it becomes habituated in your mind. However, unlike an athlete who will be focusing on the very next bout or championship, it is crucial to anticipate beyond one’s life, because when it comes a “family”, it always refers to at least two generations of relatives, thus the importance of beginning with the end in mind as suggested in this article illustrating 3 ways to philosophize on your relationship with money.

It is in that latter that a point was made on the way you manage money during your lifetime could either be a blessing or a burden to your relatives since your financial decisions, or the lack thereof, will eventually outlive you.

Thus, making sure to dedicate enough time in not only visualizing but also consulting your future self. Try as hard as possible to see with clarity, where do you live, with who and how, how many revenue streams and how much does that generate, how fulfilled are you with your work, do you even work, how much and what kind experience have you gained? Some will argue this is pure speculation, now you know those people are fixed-mindset, others will see this is the actual power of your current self holds on your future self, thus today being a present through the reward of another chance to make the right choice for your future.

Plan

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail” ~ Benjamin Franklin

Now that our growth-oriented mind has the bigger picture by visualizing and interacting with our ideal, yet attainable, future self. Before getting into action, best planning ahead and being prepared.

Having the bigger picture in mind can be intimidating, thus the importance of breaking it down into smaller parts and categorizing courses of action to be executed in the following 3, 5 and 10 years or more depending on the goal.

When it comes to setting goals, I got introduced to a cool concept during my business studies: the S.M.A.R.T method in which to make sure your goals are clear and reachable, each one should be:

• Specific (simple, sensible, significant).

• Measurable (meaningful, motivating).

• Achievable (agreed, attainable).

• Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based).

• Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive).

For example: if you decide to sell clothing online (self-promo): a S.M.A.R.T goal would be to sell 10 unisex t-shirts “Citizen of the World” per month.

However, the problem with such way of setting goals is the fact that it is more result based than action-based. Indeed, such way of formulating goals invites us to focus our energy on something we have absolutely no control over. Selling X amount of items online per month is a result-driven goal and totally fine when you reach it but what if you do not? Being repeatedly confronted to such demotivating outputs can be exasperating, especially when it is often (not to say always) part of the beginning of, be it a ”side-hustle” and/or freelance project, it already is challenging and exasperating to go through such entrepreneurial endeavors.

A better example would be an action-driven goal such as: find my niche market and publish X videos on YouTube in year Y to reach potential customers, while promoting my brand in each video as well as displaying the merchandise below my videos.

I would argue that translating result-driven goals into action-driven ones will indeed bring greater satisfaction and feeling of ownership, you are also holding yourself more accountable in a transparent way instead of taking the risk of ending up upset by a result that might fluctuate for an infinite number of reasons.

Remember one thing: your actions are telling the truth about who you are and what you are trying to accomplish.

Action

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” ~ Albert Einstein

To this moment, the mind has a long-term vision, interacting with its future self and is capable of planning action-based goals. The next point encapsulates what we have learned so far perfectly: writing down and executing the 3 most important sets of actions to do for the present day, the week and quarter. This is the core of the 3–3–3 method, in which:

• Every day, you choose the three tasks that will help you make the most progress toward your weekly objectives.

• Each week, you define the three objectives that will have the most impact on your quarterly goals.

• Every quarter, you set three goals that you want to achieve in the three months ahead.

“If you are willing to do only what’s easy, life will be hard.” ~ T. Harv Eker

Last but not least, have fun and experiment something new with your money and your risk appetite should guide you on how uncomfortable you want to be within reasonable boundaries. Diversify not only your investment portfolio but experiences as well, explore by trying new activities that could eventually create a new revenue stream, find yourself a mentor or 2, talk more openly about money around you and learn.

Implementing and mastering all this, I can certainly guarantee you that you will be on your way to be rich in experiences during your existence and will gain the characteristics to become a good ancestor to your family, probably not like Elon Musk but I dare you to become the greatest version of [insert your name here] since Elon Musk is already taken.

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