DO YOU THINK YOU’LL BE DIFFERENT IN TEN YEARS?

When you think of what you’ll be like ten years from now, if you’re like most people, you probably imagine that you’ll be just like you are now. Yet when you look back ten years, aren’t you different than you were then?

You’ve learned from experiences, dealt with some hardship, maybe suffered some loss, triumphed in some things, been delighted by epiphanies, and came to understand some things you had not understood before.

If there is something you know not to do now because you "learned it the hard way," if you have things that you regret having done that you would never ever do again, you can thank your past self for learning that lesson for you – so you don’t have to keep re-learning it, and suffering over and over again like some cruel Groundhog Day remake.

Of course you are different today than you were ten years ago – unless you’ve removed yourself from any experience of living. Life is a continual anti-entropy endeavor. If we don’t expend energy to create order, the natural tendency of things to move toward disorder takes over.

If you don’t mow the lawn, the lawn becomes a growth of weeds; if you don’t use your body in some kind of physical activity, your body begins to break down; if you don’t use your mind to learn and think about new things, your mind will become less active and effective.

If you don’t grow and learn and change your behavior over time to adapt to what you learn, you will become stuck in a rut, passively holding on to the familiar while the world carries on without you.

We all must succumb to entropy to some degree of course, but we also all experience things, and learn, grow, and change as a result.

You will be different than you are now in ten years. That’s a fact of life. The question is, how will you be different; and will you be different mostly as a result of events, or through conscious choice?

In research by Quoidback, Gilbert and Wilson, The End of History Illusion, they found that while we look back over the past ten years and easily see and expect that we are different now, we don’t expect that we will be different ten years from now. Rather, we tend to think that our current age is where we have finally become who we are – and who we are now, we feel, is who we will be in the future.

So, we will be different ten years from now; that’s a fact, a given, a law of the universe even. Yet we don’t think we will be different. That leaves a vacuum. There will be change, yet we tend not to think there will be, so the question becomes: "How will that change happen, if we’re not in on it?"

The answer is, often the change will happen to us. Other people, events, processes outside of our conscious awareness maybe, or outside of our conscious control, will shape us, influence us, and change us over time.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Good people can change us in good ways; good experiences can lead us in better directions. The point is not to avoid influence from others; that would be a lonely and rigid life, and is really not possible to achieve. We all influence and are influenced by one another much more profoundly than most of us are aware.

If you gain or lose weight, for example, your friends are more likely to gain or lose weight; if you quit smoking, your friends are more likely to quit smoking; if you become happier, your friends will be more likely to become happier.

But we can allow ourselves to be changed and molded passively by outside events most of the time; and that’s not an approach to living that I’d recommend.

One of the hardest things to overcome with substance abuse is the effect of the peer group. Addicts will go into rehab for several weeks, and come out and be right back with the same group of people who influenced them to abuse the substance in the first place. The effect of the rehab fades while the influence of the peers continues on as strong as ever.

This is an example of passive change: letting events or circumstances primarily direct the course of your life.

If we believe that we won’t be any different ten years from now, I would wager that we would be much less likely to take an active role in our own process of change and growth, leaving it to others and to circumstances to take care of the changes that will happen, whether we are in on them or not.

The first step toward owning your own life, then, is to acknowledge that we will be different in the future than we are now. The next step is to think about how we would like to be different.

Once we get the idea that we will be changing in the future, then we can also get the idea that we can be the author of much of that change. Not all of that change – there is plenty that we have nothing to say about in this life – but much more than we could ever hope to if we don’t accept the reality that we will be different in the future, one way or another.

So how would you like your life to be different ten years from now? Five years from now? One year from now? Do you want to be wealthier? Do you want to enjoy better health and fitness? Do you want to have relationships that feel really good and satisfying? Do you want to be doing something different with your work?

Some of this may be outside of your control. You may have physical limitations; you may have circumstances you have to deal with as they are for now; responsibilities from which you cannot leave your post, at least for a given amount of time.

But take what’s given, accept reality as it is. Now, given the truth of your situation, how would you like to be different at some point in the future? What would you need to do in order to make those changes in your life? How can you go about structuring those changes; what support do you need to maintain them until they are habits?

Once you know that you’ll be different, then it’s an easy question to ask: "How would I like to be different?" And that can be one of the most delightful and profound questions that you can ask.

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What do you want to make happen in your life this year? What habits do you need to establish in order to be more effective and happy in your life? How will you go about learning those habits, and creating your best life?

What is the first step you need to take?

I want to humbly suggest that your first step may be to enlist me as your coach.

Changing habits is simple but not easy. There are strategies that are effective, and ways of thinking about your situation that are empowering. One of the main elements of making positive changes in your life is to have an ally, a guide, a coach.

·         An ally who will take the time to get to know you personally, to understand your situation, your dreams, and your goals

·         A guide who will help you to find effective routes to those goals

·         A coach who will help you to develop strategies, and keep you on track until you get there.

Over the next year, would you like to make significant positive moves toward your life’s vision? If you’re serious about this, I want to help you get there. Let’s arrange a free phone call and see if working together would be what you need to get going on these dreams and goals. There is absolutely no obligation; the worst that can happen is that we have a nice talk. E-mail me at [email protected], or call at (831) 464-3374.

Here’s what a couple of folks have said about their work with me (more here):

"Joel has an acute ability to get at the heart of any issue. He assisted me with defining success, goal setting, preparing an action plan and overcoming obstacles. His insight was excellent on the reality of what to expect in certain situations instead of a "pie in the sky" attitude that would have only set me up for failure.

"Joel handled my case and more so my person, with the utmost professionalism and care. He was a coach, a mentor and a friend. He was a great listener but also brought forth quick results that came from within me, through his guidance. I accomplished a lot personally through him and would work with him again without hesitation. He was instrumental in helping me find pathways and enlightenment to what was once a dark place. I cannot give enough credit to him, his discipline and his personal approach to me."