海角大神

My office is a mess. I don鈥檛 feel like cleaning it 鈥� I鈥檇 rather play with the kids right now. So I say, 鈥淚 will clean it in the future,鈥� and I go play. A week later, my office is still a mess.

You鈥檙e not saving for retirement. You鈥檙e also spending as much as you bring in because you鈥檙e going out a lot and you just picked up a big HDTV and those car lease payments are whittling you down. So you say, 鈥淚 will start saving in the future.鈥� Five years later, you don鈥檛 have a dime in retirement.

I鈥檓 overweight. I was in pretty good shape, but my exercise routine was blown away by the writing, editing, and promotional work for my upcoming book. I鈥檇 like to run, but there is so much else to do. So I say, 鈥淚 will go exercise in the future,鈥� and I work on other things. A month later, I still haven鈥檛 started that exercise routine.

You鈥檙e in a truckload of debt, but there are a bunch of things happening this summer that you want to do. So you tell yourself, 鈥淚 will come up with a debt repayment plan in the future.鈥� A year from now, your debt situation is worse (if that鈥檚 possible).

I need to redo our will to account for our newborn son. It鈥檚 one of those 鈥渋mportant but not urgent鈥� tasks, so I鈥檒l tell myself, 鈥淚鈥檒l adjust the will in the future.鈥� A month later, it鈥檚 still not done.

Going back to school. Looking for a different job. Taking charge of our spending. Kicking a smoking or a drinking or a drug habit. Rebuilding a relationship with our father or our mother or our sister or our brother.

There are countless things that we ought to be doing now, but instead of doing them, we simply say, 鈥淥ur future self will do it.鈥�

Guess what? Our future self is pretty unreliable, too. He/she doesn鈥檛 think that the task in hand sounds like much fun, either, and he/she is just as likely to put it off as you are.

Actually, your future self is even more likely to put it off than you are because you鈥檝e already established a pattern that putting off that important thing is okay.

If you want to actually succeed in life, stop relying on your future self to take care of things. Now.

If you鈥檙e in debt and want to fix it, start fixing it now.

If you鈥檙e overweight, start eating better and exercising now.

If you鈥檙e not saving for retirement, set up retirement savings now.

If you want to get household tasks done, do them now.

Don鈥檛 find excuses to not do them because you want to do something 鈥渇un鈥� today. There will always be something fun to do, which means there will always be a reason to avoid making the hard changes.

If you won鈥檛 make the change, your future self certainly won鈥檛, either. By skipping out now, you鈥檙e telling your future self that not doing it is just fine.

Are you going to do something today, or are you going to give you and your future self permission to never actually get around to it?

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