When you’re going through something, how do you react to people who ask, “Are you really going to care about this 10 years from now?”
If you're anything like me your answer will be “Yeah, I'm going to care about this 10 years from now! Cause it’s a big deal! I'm not going to laugh about this 10 years later!”
But I'm going to take you through an exercise to show you that even though it's a big deal for you now, it probably won't be a big deal for you 10 years from now.
The Assumption of The Future
Think about how old you are today. Maybe you're 20, maybe you're 30, maybe you're 40, maybe you're 50.
The original question is future oriented. Right now, we believe that how we feel now is how we're going to feel all the time - even though that's not technically true.
But we're going to do an exercise that reverses the orientation of this question.
What is today's date?
However old you are today, take your age and minus 10 years.
Try to remember 10 years ago today. What you were doing? Where were you living? Who were you living with? What was your life about at that time?
I bet there are a lot of things about 10 years ago today, you don't even remember. You have to guess what happened 10 years to go today.
Whatever it is you were feeling that day was probably a big deal that day.
But, you don't even remember it today!
The Reality of The Past
As hard as it is to believe that 10 years from now, you're not going to care about what's happening today, that's exactly what happened to what was going on 10 years ago today!
[Pause as your mind is blown by this realization.]
This is a major brain hack. I do brain hacks all the time with my clients to put them in a better space because our brains are constantly talking to us, constantly saying things. And we believe everything that our brains tell us. Sometimes the things our brains tell us are inaccurate and we really shouldn't believe it.
One of those things is that how you feel today is how you’re going to feel forever.
That doesn’t mean that there aren't going to be any consequences from what is happening today. Consequences always exist. Who we are today is a result of what happened to who we were 10 years ago today. If something different had happened to us 10 years ago today, we would be a completely different person today.
I'm not saying that what's happening today has zero effect in our lives. It actually does. It has a lot of effects on our lives. It puts us on a path to becoming someone 10 years from now versus a different person 10 years from now.
In that sense, what's happening today absolutely matters. But are you going to have the same exact emotions about it 10 years from now that you do today?
Try That Brain Hack Again
As you can see, chances are 10 years from now, we're not even going to remember today. We're going to have an idea of what was going on around the time period of today. But you’re not going to be dealing with it 10 years from now. Just like we're not dealing with the same things that we were dealing with 10 years ago. You might have some residual feelings about what happened 10 years ago, but you're not going to feel exactly the same way. And for a lot of the things that happened 10 years ago, you're not caring about it as much as you did 10 years ago either. So whatever's happening to you now, chances are, you're not going to care about this 10 years from now.
[Pause again]
I hope you get a lot of relief from this brain hack.