If you’re anywhere near the “woo woo” side of the internet, then you know that the lion’s gate portal happened on 8/8. Now, I don’t know exactly what that means (for more info, check out Jordan Younger), but I do know that it felt like the right time to post this.
P.S. This is listed as a paid post, but the vast majority is free!
While I definitely subscribe to a lot of the “woo woo” that is meditation and visualization, I am, at heart, incredibly practical. So I’ve always had a bit of trouble with the part of manifestation that asks you to become your future self.
Visualize what you want to do or become and then walk around as if it were already true.
I mean, that’s great advice, but what does it actually mean. I can walk around all day and think that my house is paid off, but it isn’t.
That said, after thinking about it a lot, it started to make more sense, but I think there’s more to it than just “becoming your future self” and trying to make yourself feel like the thing you want is already here.
There’s a practical way to do it that makes it more tangible and powerful.
I’ll tell you what I mean in a second, but I want to share a quick story first.
From 2013 to 2023, my husband and I lived in a hand-me-down trailer. When we moved to Wisconsin, part of the plan was to live in a home that my in-laws owned. There, we would be able to save a bunch of money and buy a house in two years.
If you’re any good at math, you’ll quickly realize that we were there for 10 years. We paid off my student loan debt in 2015, saved an emergency fund, had three kids in four years, and went to one income so my husband could stay home with said children.
Suffice it to say, we didn’t have a lot of spare cash for a down payment.
So we stayed. I went through a period where I just absolutely hated it. It wasn’t a house I had really chosen, it was just there when we got here. It wasn’t a “real” home — it could literally be moved (I’ll come back to this). It wasn’t as nice as some of my friends homes. Etc etc etc.
I also wanted to quit teaching to stay home with the kids. We hadn’t been able to make the switch yet, and I was going through the ups and downs that is pregnancy and postpartum, so there were just a lot of emotions happening.
But then, I realized that it was our home.
It was our first home as a married couple and where we brought our puppy home. Then we brought our babies home there.
I started thinking that if I couldn’t appreciate that home, how would I appreciate any home. It had everything that we needed.
So I started treating it with more love.
I cleaned it with joy and thankfulness that I had been missing. I thought that the better I took care of it, the better equipped I would be to take care of a home later.
That honestly changed everything. I literally became the person who took care of a home that she loved. So when we bought our home — our literal dream home — in 2023, 10 years after we moved into the trailer, I was ready. I was already her, the person who could care for a home with love and joy and gratitude. I had become her a long time ago.
What does it mean to become your future self
I don’t know if I fully realized what I was doing back then. It probably got lost in a haze of snacks and diapers, but I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since then.
Now, the big goal is to pay off our house this year. So I started thinking — what does Paid Off House Steph look like and how could I become her now?
Well, when I picture Paid Off House Steph, she has a lot of plants that are thriving. Don’t ask me why, I’m a terrible plant parent, but that’s what I see. So rather than wait until the house is paid off, I started focusing on my plants now. In my head, the better I get these plants to look, the closer I am to stepping into Paid Off House Steph.
These are the plants after I started taking better care of them. I wish I had a before before because they were rough!
I think that becoming your future self is more than visualizing a future version of you who has what you want. I think it’s more about identifying the ways you can actually be that person now.
Below, you’ll find:
3 practical ways you can become your future self today, or at lease take concrete steps to move towards becoming that person.
What my plants look like today!
Another future self story from my early freelancing days.
11 questions you can ask yourself to figure out what actions to take to become your future self today — in a practical way!
If you’re not in the TSF Club yet, now’s the time to join! This is from one member after she got her Welcome Packet!
Thank-you for the package that I found in my mailbox!! How fun it was to open it, and how thoughtful for you to put it together! I love the reflection card and it’s so handy for it to be laminated. I’ve already spent some time with it and will keep it close by. Also, wanted to let you know that I got a pitch accepted for the first time! Absolutely thrilling! As always, thanks for being a cheerleader in this space.
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