As you plan for your future and think ahead, the science tells us that we really see our future selves as strangers. It’s hard to connect with that future version of you in order to really make meaningful decisions on future you’s behalf.

One of the tactics that I use to make that connection is to journal as if it’s my future self talking to my current self, or even having conversation with me now and my future self, as I actually do with my younger self. I make those connections because each version of me has laid the foundation or is moving me forward in life. And that future version of me has a lot of expectation and knows how the story’s going to be playing out. So that’s my tactic.

But again, the science behind this says that, you know, it’s very understandably hard to connect us today with that future self. Beyond the tactic I’ve just described that I employ and have for a long while, another really attainable practice is to live in gratitude.

Our brains are excellent BS detectors. So that idea of using affirmations to say “hi, I am a multimillionaire,” you know, in the moment today when you’re not a multimillionaire—your brain is processing that information. It’s keenly aware and there is part of you, as much as you’re latching onto that very positive affirmation, the brain is going, “no, we’re not that’s not accurate yet.” However, the brain in a state of gratitude can acknowledge the good things that you have already attained, the accomplishments already in your back pocket. And the gratitude for those can actually fuel with a more realistic, perhaps pragmatic approach, the goals that you do have for your future.

So gratitude as I described through the story of Mr. Prak (click here to read) in his initial very cold shower that led him to a path in life where he is able to take hot cleansing showers whenever he so desires here in the United States in a life of freedom—that same kind of gratitude you can tap into and use it as the true affirmation of the good things to come.

While I fully acknowledge we do not need to live in the past—there’s really no possibility behind us, we need to look to the future and be walking forward, I am a proponent of looking back with strategy and intelligence to tap into those times where gratitude, where situations have affirmed that we’re heading is absolutely possible.

If we were able to do X, Y, Z, previously, we certainly can tap into that same action emotion and, and self capability to get to the future that we so desire. So yeah. Let your gratitude propel you forward.