3 Steps on How to Visualize Your Future Self Correctly

I recently read Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan’s book: 10x Is Easier Than 2x: How World-Class Entrepreneurs Achieve More By Doing Less (after a friend’s high praise and recommendation) … and, let me tell you the introduction, alone, changed my life.

This book has now moved into my Top 5 Best Books for Entrepreneurs category (and, honestly for transformational leaders, in general). I cannot begin to rave about it enough.

For now, I am going to dig into one little slice of it’s magic. Don’t be surprised if this is one of a few posts regarding this read.

While I have to say the concepts overall were not new, the context and way the information was presented was.

I have been addicted ever since to this framework, and cannot get my hands on enough of Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s work. I now follow him on Instagram and YouTube, and have been chasing his podcasts interviews.

Yep, I have become a full-fledged stalker.

Seriously though, I can’t help myself. His work is mind-blowing, insightful, profound, thought-provoking … and, oh so simple.

Like really simple.

Now, I didn’t say it was easy material. Simple. It makes so much sense. He took the frameworks that Dan Sullivan has created in his Strategic Coach work over the past 40 years or so, and marries that with his psychology background for a truly revolutionary perspective.

In fact, the amount of highlighters and post-it flags I went through is astonishing. It’s one of those books my mom always jokes would have been better if I just grabbed a paintbrush and dipped into into yellow paint and marked the entire thing. I think I wore out at least 4 highlighters.

It was truly that good.

Recently, I caught an interview Dr. Hardy did on Ed Mylett’s podcast: The Ed Mylett Show. In this particular episode (which is freaking amazing, I might add), Dr. Ben shares three steps on how we can visualize correctly and make the necessary shift towards our future self.

Let me break down the three steps:

Step #1: Be Honest About the Future You MOST Want

This means you have to be vulnerable with yourself. Unless you are willing to fully acknowledge your real want and the real why, you are not setting yourself up to 10x and manifest what you truly desire.

Instead, you will find yourself in another iteration of 2x growth, at best.

We often disguise what we really want due to how we have been conditioned. Perhaps we’ve been told our desires are too “pie-in-the-sky”, or that we are being selfish for wanting material things.

We convince ourselves often that what we want has to be of the highest service (which, it may be), and then disregard our human wants and needs in the process. Especially when we first start embrace a 10x mindset.

Because it’s okay to want to be wealthy, or to attract a lot of money. It’s okay to want to be famous, or to be recognized for your work. As you grow, and continually 10x your mindset, your life, your work, and your freedoms, you also will find your wants and needs change along the way.

It also means you need to be brutally honest with where you are, how you are showing up (or aren’t), and in what ways you are pulling yourself out of the inspired action needed to align with what you truly want.

The only way we can grow is to be honest with all aspects of who we are, what we are choosing to do, and how we take responsibility and accountability for our thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions.

But, for now, until you get really honest with want you really want (and why), what you are visualizing isn’t matching the energetic frequency of what you are feeling and what you believe. It’s also stoppping you from taking full ownership. Therefore, shutting down your ability to manifest the future self you really want.

Step #2: Reframe How You Think About Time

Meaning, you need to shift away from a finite, fixed, and linear Newtonian mindset of time into a much more abstract, abundant and expansive Einsteinian one. As Dr. Benjamin Hardy states:

“The past, present, and future are all existing right now. We have the opportunity to master our past, and to master our future.”

He also goes on to say, probably one of my favorite Hardy-isms I’ve come across (yes, I am coining that term, as I need a way to capture all these awesome nuggets he shares):

“The past does not determine your present; but rather, your present determines your past. And, you want the future to determine and filter what you say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ to in the present.”

Wow, talk about mindset shift! Sit with that for a moment.

Most of our conditioning is that time is slipping away, like sands through an hourglass. We fret and fear that there isn’t enough time. Enough time to live the life we truly want. Enough time to bring our dreams to reality.

And, we procrastinate. We delay.

We hem and haw, keeping ourselves stuck in cycles of endless busywork. When BUSY is the ultimate four-letter word. It creates a diminishing value and return on our energy, and of our focus.

When we operate in this frame, time is finite. However, when we allow ourselves to step into the power of reframing that narrative, we find that we can create time. For every moment we invest our energy in the spaces correct for us, in the ways that light us up … time seems to slow down and freeze, allowing us to do 3 weeks of work in a merely a few hours of time.

We slow down to speed up.

We then are able to create based on the filter or frame we set for ourselves. As Dr. Hardy explains:

Look for evidence of your future self, for change. Look at the past from a grateful perspective, and recognize the difference between your past and present self.

He refers to this as psychological flexibility.

Step #3: Pathways Thinking

When we allow our future to dictate the present, and when your “why” is strong enough, you’ll easily find the “how” require to move into action. And, as Dr. Ben suggests, you’ll also find the “whos”.

[Which, just to note, that will be my next adventure … reading Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan’s book: Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork]

You simply have to be willing to forge or create a new path. As Einstein taught us, the very definition of insanity is thinking doing the same thing over-and-over again hoping to get a different result.

Essentially, what got you to this level cannot and will not be what’s required to get you to your next level, especially a 10x level. It’s only in our own learning, development, and continuing to stretch ourselves outside our current comfort zone that we can reach substantially new heights.

As Hardy describes, you have to be “willing to strip away everything.” In the book, he uses the example of how Michelangelo created the statue of David. In essence, you need to strip away everything that’s not your David.

Everything about the 10x mindset has me lit up. I particularly found the exercises of going back and reflecting on your previous 10x moves to be eye-opening. As I was going back over all my former 10x decisions and actions, I had an epiphany … I used to be a 10X Queen.

I realized somewhere along the way I settled. I got complacent. I started hanging out in the 2x land of finite potential and growth, pushing, grinding, doing more of the same … hoping for a different result.

It was like a massive wake-up call!

It’s high-time to jump back into my crown and embody that badass, 10x Queen that lives within me. It’s time to take the reins back and dream the impossible dream, and to set impossible goals.

For only the impossible goals are big enough to get you to think differently. Only impossible goals are big enough to move you into radical, inspired action. Only impossible goals are big enough to demand a 10x mindset.

Lastly, I will offer one more Hardy-ism before I close:

10X is fundamentally about quality vs quantity, and the quality of your freedoms determines the results you achieve.

Cheers to quality. Cheers to freedom. Cheers to living 10x!

With so much love and reverence, Candy

[PS: I sincerely want to give a huge shout out to Dr. Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan for this body of work.

To say is has been a game-changer would not fully do it justice. It’s helping me reclaim my light, my passion, my purpose, and my fire.

I encourage you to purchase your own copy (along with a box of highlighters, notecards or notebooks, and a lot of post-it tabs): 10x Is Easier Than 2x]