TGIM: For Future You

Welcome back to Thank God It’s Monday! Happy Memorial Day to those who have loved ones who have sacrificed for this country. Hopefully, everyone can reflect today while enjoying the weather and a long weekend for many of you to remember how fortunate we are to be alive when and where we are.

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tl;dr Change is hard because it’s human nature to prefer the comfort of now to the uncertainty of the future. But aren’t we certain that we want to be healthier and happier in the future than we are right now? Using community, little wins, and emotional drive can help us tolerate the discomfort of now for the benefit of our future selves.
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Most of us are struggling to change something in our lives. We want to build a business or develop healthier habits. Maybe you’re trying to pay off debt or increase your savings. You might even be struggling to finish a project you started or start a new one that’s been on your mind for a while.

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Change is hard because as we talked about a couple of weeks ago, humans always err towards comfort. It’s hard to start going to the gym regularly when you’re used to watching Netflix every night. It’s difficult to start investing in a retirement account when you’re accustomed to spending your entire paycheck on living expenses and the comforts of life. Building a side hustle feels impossible when you’re typically reliant on your stable 9-5 income.

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Many people say they want one thing but then act in a way that suggests they want something different. We envision a life for our future selves but can’t get our current selves to act in accordance with what it will take to get there. Why is it so hard to do what we know will make us happier in the long run?

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This week I listened to a podcast that talked about research I hadn’t heard before studying why we have a difficult time acting in the best interest of our future selves. They put participants in an MRI to determine what areas of the brain were being used to think about themselves versus what areas were used to think about others. Logically, different areas of the brain are utilized when considering yourself versus someone you don’t really know, their example was Matt Damon. The interesting conclusion they found though is when thinking about their future selves, the participants used the same part of their brain they used when thinking about Matt Damon and not the one used to think about their current selves.

This makes a lot of sense right? Our current selves are emotional, familiar beings. Matt Damon and our future selves are vaguely familiar and our actions don’t necessarily have tangible consequences for them. Well, it turns out a similar part of our brains is being used to think about Matt Damon and ourselves in 20 or 50 years. No wonder I have a hard time convincing myself to skip the warm bread before dinner at a restaurant when my brain considers the risk-benefit.
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So how can we be more considerate of our future selves?

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The first place to look for better direction is how we’ve done it in the past. Undoubtedly you’ve had an experience in the past when you’ve made yourself uncomfortable in the present moment in order to reap the rewards in the future. Maybe you’ve skipped a night out to have a better day the following day. Maybe you invest in your retirement accounts before paying for a vacation or new clothes. Or maybe you eat your vegetables before all of the better-tasting things on your plate so you can live a long and healthy life.

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As with most things in life, exercise is always an easy example so we’ll model the discussion with exercise. There are a few reasons people exercise when it’s obviously easier not to and we’ll see how we can utilize each of them to better plan for our future selves. It’s a relatable example of how we sacrifice our current comfort for our future gain.

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One reason many people start exercising is because of the communal popularity. Going to the gym has become very commonplace. Younger people are going with their friends than when I was young and social media is filled with workout recommendations, health hacks, blah blah blah.

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I’m not here to knock the benefits of going to the gym. I’ve been going to a gym regularly for over 10 years and have been a personal trainer for almost seven of them. But it is much easier to get off your couch and get your butt to the gym when you are meeting a friend and when going to the gym has become such a mainstream form of exercise.
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There are millions of ways to exercise: walking, surfing, climbing, pilates, yoga, cycling, and snowboarding just to name a few. The gym is just one of many, many ways to move. But the gym has become such a popular method of movement that there is less resistance to sacrificing for our future selves because, well, everyone is doing it.

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So one way to help prioritize our future selves over our current comfort is to find a community that’s already taking those actions. If you’re trying to grow a business but no one in your current group of friends is doing so, it will be really hard to do it. You would have to sacrifice current plans with your friends to benefit your future self.

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Instead, if you surround yourself with a group of people who are already building businesses, you could make plans with them to do the work to benefit your future self without sacrificing as much current happiness. If you’re going against the grain in your friend group, find a community in which you can go with the grain and more easily take action to benefit your future self.

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Another reason people exercise is because they’ve experienced the reward of doing so. As with everything, getting started is always the hardest part of taking action. Once you start and see the benefits it’s easier to keep going. Doing a difficult workout when you’re out of breath and sweating profusely is much more enjoyable when you know how it feels to be done with that workout. That rush of energy and confidence is a big part of what keeps you coming back for more.

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Encouraging yourself to make sacrifices for the benefit of future you, it helps to find ways to achieve little wins. Little wins help build traction and make the process less tortuous.
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If your goal is to pay off debt, it would be beneficial to pay off a smaller balance first to feel the satisfaction of getting one checked off. (The alternative would be to pay down a higher-interest debt first to decrease the overall interest you would be paying). It can be discouraging to feel like you’re not making headway on a goal that is going to benefit you in the distant future. Therefore, building tangible wins for the current and short-term-future you will help you stay on track.
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Another reason people exercise is for the commitment to living a long, independent, and meaningful life. This one is a little tricky because the compelling reason is for the future self even though as we saw from the study that’s as convincing an argument as exercising for Matt Damon.

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We know exercise allows us to grow and maintain our bones and muscles which helps us continue what we refer to as our ADLs (activities of daily living) independently. You probably can think of someone in your family or workplace who can’t do their own grocery shopping or tie their shoes without difficulty. Society loves to tell us that it just happens with age. This is simply not the whole truth. Continuing to resistance train, stay mobile, and challenge our cardiovascular abilities will let us stay independent in our homes for longer.
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This is motivating itself for some people to continue exercising. But that feeling of wanting to stay independent has to be compelling enough emotionally to get us to exercise today.
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Part of the reason this motivates me to move is because I work with people who are undergoing major surgery, critical illness, and even death as a result of not taking care of themselves. Seeing families lose their loved ones and watching my patients suffer reminds me of why I want to do everything in my power to never live like that. Of course, there is some luck that plays into our fate, but why not maximize what’s under our control to prevent disease and death?

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Being able to truly let yourself feel those emotions helps drive certain people. The thought of depending on a feeding tube or relying on supplemental oxygen terrifies me, especially if there’s anything I can do right now to prevent that from happening. Of course that may not prevent me from taking a cookie every stressful night shift I have. But most of the time that feeling is a strong motivator to move, eat well, and take care of myself.

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Being able to draw on strong emotions, both positive and negative, can help compel our current selves to sacrifice for our future selves. Maybe you’re considering quitting your job to start a new one even though it pains you to tell your boss but you know you need to change for your health or happiness. At some point, the emotions of feeling stuck or frustrated will overpower the craving for comfort and consistency. Being able to sooner harness that emotional drive can help you make those changes to benefit your future self.

In reality, the drive to change is multifaceted and probably incorporates more than one of these motivators. You probably need some small wins and a little kick in the butt to start making changes to how you eat. You might need a reality check and an advisor or coach to help you get a handle on your finances. There are lots of other ways people motivate themselves to change for the benefit of future them. But if you’re struggling to get started, remember these examples and how important your health and happiness are in 10 weeks, 10 months, or 10 years. Let me know other ways you’ve gotten yourself to tolerate discomfort now knowing how much better off you’ll be in the future.
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If you found some value in this, please share it with a friend you think would enjoy it! And let me know if you’d like to be added to get TGIM. Or visit https://walshwellness.weebly.com/ for older editions and if you’d like to subscribe.

This week my podcast recommendation which inspired the topic this week is from Ted Radio Hour, “Future You.” If you’re interested in learning more about the study I mentioned at the beginning or other ways to act in accordance with future you, check this episode out.

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With that, I hope you all had a lovely holiday weekend! Let me know if you made it all the way to the end of this today and if it was worth the discomfort of reading for that long for the benefit of what you learned or how it made you feel.
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Until next time,

Shannon