Something we all have in common is that we want to have a better future. That’s not to say that you can’t be grateful and mindful for what you have, but the desire to make progress and grow is innate inside each and every one of us. But when it comes to wanting to have a better future, how do you actually go about pursuing that?

Something I’ve learned is that we are all creators. We all hold the key to every door we want to open, we just need to connect with that possibility to make it a reality. And something I do to make that connection is I choose to see my future.

The first way of doing this is by letting your future exist in your physical environment. Write out your goals and put them on the wall, create your vision board, change your laptop screensaver. When you do this, and as small as it may seem, you begin seeing your future on a daily basis just based on the stimuli around you. The more accessible the visual is the more exposure you get, and the more your mind can develop around that idea.

The second way of seeing your future is through visualization. Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal future and imagine it in vivid detail. Find a way to revisit that space often because each time, it primes your brain to seek out opportunities that will help you to ultimately create it.

I know, when it comes to building your future there’s more to it than just imagining it or looking at pictures - You need to take action. But seeing your future cultivates an awareness and makes the future you want to have more top of mind, more often. And you can’t get there unless you start seeing it!

I learned a lesson in 8th grade that really stood out to me, and 13 years later it’s something I think about often because it left a strong impression on me.

My math teacher, Mr. Smith, had us do a really interesting and reflective exercise. At the beginning of the semester he asked us to set intentions about how we were going to show up to class. But the nuance here is he encouraged us to think in a realistic way so that we could actually deliver on the intention. Instead of saying “I will give 100% in class everyday”, he suggested we say “I will give everything I have on any given day”, helping us acknowledge that things aren’t always going to be perfect and we need to plan around that.

Typically in goal setting I focus on stark objectivity, but this idea introduces a necessary subjectivity. Each action you take exists within the context of the day, and many things beyond your control. It’s hard to be enthusiastic and excitable when a loved one passes away, or you hear other bad news, or you didn’t get enough sleep for some reason. And that’s going to happen, so introducing some subjectivity gives you the leeway you need to handle a variety of different situations. 

Marshall Goldsmith, a world leading executive coach,  does this perfectly. He asks people to establish a number of priorities, and then everyday evaluate their performance toward that priority by asking themselves “Did I do my best to…”. In this way, you make it about the effort, not the outcome, which is always in your control. 

With this in mind, I recently adjusted my goal setting and tracking to be more compliant with this. I’ll let you know how it goes!

When it comes to feeling guilt, we usually relate to it in a negative way and hold a negative perspective toward it. I want you to challenge that, specifically by way of this reframe I learned from Brendon Burchard. 

First, what is guilt? And I don’t mean guilt in the court of law, I mean the emotion of feeling guilty. Guilt is a negative reflection of how something went, something that didn’t go according to plan, where you feel partially at fault for some unintended negative consequences.  At first glance this seems like an entirely bad thing because something bad happened, but if you go a layer deeper and think about what that guilt actually represents you’ll quickly realize a silver-lining.

When you feel guilty you acknowledge that you were responsible for the way things went.  You are internalizing what it was about your actions, choices, and behaviors that could have been different. What this means is you recognize that you didn’t meet the standards you set for yourself, and your feeling guilty is a reminder that you are capable of doing better.

Guilt is an emotion that brings our awareness to the fact that something was off between what we did and who we want to be. That’s a huge deal! If you’re not guilty or remorseful for something, then you have no desire to change how things went. So when you feel guilty, even when things didn’t go according to plan, at least you can know that you expect better from yourself moving forward.

And that’s what I want guilt to mean for you. Sure, the end-result may have been less than desired, that’s life, but how do you handle those moments and use that to make a better future?

Task orientation is the philosophy that you only focus on the next thing that needs to get done. You can overcome the overwhelm and disempowerment you face when trying to accomplish your big goals by narrowly thinking about the next step you need to take. The doubt you experience when thinking about your dreams arises because it’s so far out and imperceivable. But the truth to making real progress, and achieving your dreams, is it doesn’t happen all at once. It requires incremental steps in the right direction, and that’s what task orientation does.

If you want to run a marathon, focus on this week of training. If you want to start a new business, determine what paperwork you need to file first, and how to get your first customer. If you want to mend a relationship, take small actions now in whatever way is appropriate. When you become really clear on the objective you can break down what needs to get done in order to meet that objective. This also allows you to set short-term expectations that you feel like you are capable of meeting, motivating you to take the necessary action.

So if you want to implement task orientation in a daunting area of your life - Filing taxes, being honest with a partner, incorporating a new morning routine, anything! - First think about the steps you need to take to get there. Once you’ve done that, then you focus on taking those next steps with full faith that they are in the direction of your ultimate goal. It’s okay to dream big, in fact I encourage it, but when you do break up that goal into smaller elements that illuminate your path to achieving it.

Let’s go back to the timeless example of the tortoise and the hare. If you’re not familiar with the story, a tortoise and a hare decide to race each other. Clearly the hare is much faster than the tortoise, and he was confident he’d win. However, the hare was overconfident and decided to take a nap during the race, allowing the tortoise to slowly catch up and eventually beat him.

The punchline to this story is “Slow and steady wins the race.

Let me dissect this story in a few ways. First is the pre-judgment. Everyone assumes that the hare would win because he is so much faster, but that’s not what the race was about. It’s important to understand how there are many qualities at play when it comes to generating outcomes, not just the obvious ones. It would have been a shame if the tortoise had ruled himself out before the race even started.

Second is the idea of how much something is valued. The hare didn't take the competition seriously, and fell asleep because he thought it was so easy. However the tortoise, who had to work hard for every step, was more motivated and committed because of the investment he had to make.

Then thinking beyond the story, and relating it back to you, what race are you running? I can guarantee it’s different from the race everyone else is running, so it’s impossible to judge your progress next to someone else’s. What you need to do is focus on the effort, the pursuit of the goal that you deem worthy, and trust that your ways of making progress are enough and worthwhile.

This is something we all know to be true, but it could always use a bit more perspective. It’s the idea of stepping out of your comfort zone. Something I’ve learned is that you cannot succeed unless you put yourself in a position to fail, and you cannot grow unless you expose your vulnerabilities and weaknesses. This thought was articulated incredibly well by Addited2Success founder Joel Brown.

Stepping out of your comfort zone doesn’t need to be a bold and defiant act. You can stretch yourself slowly but surely, in small ways to build that elasticity and tolerance, and it’s something that you need to take action on and prioritize now. The reason why certain elements of your life aren’t perfectly how you want them to be is because you aren’t actively pursuing them. Start stepping outside of your comfort zone and you’ll start recognizing how much opportunity there is to grow.

Let me run a scenario by you - You’re on the roof of a 100 story building. You see a long, narrow  plank that spans from where you’re standing to the rooftop next to you. If you cross the plank I’ll give you $20. Would you do it? Now how about this scenario. You're a parent, and your child is in danger alone on the other rooftop. Would you be more likely to cross the long, narrow plank? I imagine you are. And why is that? 

It’s because in those two very similar scenarios only one variable changed, and that was your necessity. It was how necessary and important it was that you walk across the plank. For $20, I could probably do without it. For my child? I’ll do anything. You are making very different decisions in those two scenarios.

As I learned in the book “High Performance Habits” by Brendon Burchard, necessity is an incredibly influential factor in your behavior. And knowing how valuable it is, there are ways that we can manufacture necessity to get us to commit to the behaviors we know are good for us.

One thing you can do is generate accountability. This could either be having a duty or role that others are relying on you to fill, or by holding yourself to an ideal that you set for yourself. Another way is by cultivating urgency - Setting a deadline and stretching yourself to meet it.

If you must do something, then you will, and creating more necessity in your life can help you take the necessary actions required of you to make progress.