383. Past and Future You

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 383, Past and Future You.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Hello everybody, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I just want to begin with gratitude for all of you who listen to the podcast, who share it with your friends and family, who leave me ratings and reviews on iTunes and who share it on your social media and in your stories. I, honestly, I see every one of those. Every time you tag me in something on social media that is me. I’ve tried to assign social media to my team and they’ve tried to take it on but I’m sort of addicted to it. And so I end up intercepting them.

So I think they all know now, just let Jody do it, she’s going to be on there anyway. So I probably am on there more than I should be but what I want you to know is that I see your messages. I see when you tag me and when you share it and I appreciate it so, so much, so please keep doing it. And please, if you haven’t done it, it’s not too late. And the reason I’m asking you to do that is it does serve me and my business but it serves my mission even more so.

There will be many, many people who will listen to this podcast who I will never get the privilege of working with on a deeper level and that’s okay. I really desperately want to help impact the world more through these tools. So thank you to all of you who have done that. And thank you in advance to those of you who will still share the podcast.

Today’s topic, I decided to talk about this one because I just got done doing a live coaching call in Be Bold. For those of you that are in Be Bold it’s November 10^th, so you can go listen to the live coaching call from November 10^th if you weren’t there. The last client that I coached, we started talking about this concept of past self and future self. And as I was coaching her, it soft of helped me flesh out the idea. And so I wanted to get on and record a podcast while it’s fresh in my mind.

Okay, so we have these different versions of ourselves. We have our past self which is just the person that we were even five minutes ago, that was past me. Anything that I’ve done, or that I’ve thought, or that I’ve felt, or that I was is in the past. Then there’s current me which is they say the only thing that’s actually real is what I’m thinking, feeling and doing right now. And then there’s future me who will do, and think, and feel certain things.

You can see why the only thing that’s real is what’s happening right now, because what I did in the past, what I thought in the past, what I felt in the past, who I was, how I looked. Any of that now is just something that exists in my mind. It’s just a memory. So maybe we could say, well, there are photos, or there are videos, or whatever. But my point is by my past self is now in the past. My future self is always in the future, I never catch up to her because as I am my present self and I move into the future then I become present self again.

So both of those things we want to keep in the thought line in terms of those are mental constructs, who I was, who I’m becoming. Who I am right now is the only thing that’s real. Alright, now, the way that you think about your past self and the way that you think about your future self, impacts your current self I think more than we realize, I think more than I have realized anyway until fairly recently I started to have this.

And I understood this concept logically, I have talked about it before as a coach. And I have been taught this and read about it many times but I don’t think I understood how significantly it impacts my current self until recently. So let me explain what I mean. First of all, most people don’t think about their future selves very much at all. I didn’t and in fact I still don’t nearly to the extent that I want to. I want to get better at thinking about my future self. The reason we don’t is because the future is like a blank slate, there are literally endless options, isn’t that crazy to think about?

Do you ever think about what am I going to eat for dinner tomorrow, or what am I going to make for dinner? I tend to think about dinner once a week on Saturday when I go grocery shopping. I think about what are we going to eat for dinners this week? The reason that is a challenging question for many of us to answer is because there are literally endless choices, so many choices about what we could eat for dinner. And the brain doesn’t like that. Too many choices is overwhelming to us. So instead we just go, “I don’t know, I can’t think of anything to make for dinner.”

Are you like me, do you do that? That’s what I do, I’m just like, “I can’t think of anything to make.” And it’s not because there’s nothing to make for dinner or that there’s no food in the grocery store, or that I don’t have any ideas. It’s that there are too many choices, too many options, endless possibilities of things I could make for dinner and so the brain shuts down. Now, dinner’s just one tiny little part of our future. What else is going to exist in your future? How are you going to feel? How, are you going to look? How are you going to spend your time?

Where are you going to live, etc.? So we don’t think about the future because it’s literally a blank slate and when we do think about it, we tend to limit ourselves as much as possible. Which is again, your brain’s way of saving energy but my point is, future thinking is challenging for me anyway and for most people that I know. It’s just overwhelming, it’s too much.

If somebody said to me, “Hey, Jody, you’ve got two choices in the future, either live in city A, or city B, which one would you choose?” I might think, well that stinks that I only have two choices. But the truth is, it would be much easier for my brain to start thinking about the future in that case and start planning and wrapping my head around it.

Okay, so we don’t think about our future selves now, let’s go to future self, because most of us think we’re just going to become whoever we become and we’re waiting to see who that is. And what I want to do is empower you today to have more of a say in that. I do think that there are things that are going to happen in our lives, maybe with our bodies, maybe with our relationships, maybe with our, I don’t know, etc. There are people around us have agency, some things are somewhat out of our control.

And so I personally don’t take the extreme approach of every single thing that happens in your life you’re going to create. I know some people do believe that, I could be wrong. But I do think that there’s a much higher percentage of it up for grabs than what I know I think about and what most people think about. Who am I going to be in the future? Now, future me is going to be a version of me that is the result of what present me is doing. So if I get up in the morning and I drink water and I continue to drink water throughout the day then future me like bedtime Jody is going to be more hydrated.

And if I do that many days consistently, or at least most days on the regular then future, future me, a month from now, two months from now, six months from now, a year from now. That future me is going to be a little bit healthier for having drunken, is that the word, drunken, drank? I don’t know, for drinking water. Sorry, I don’t know the past tense of drink, someone message me and tell me. That future version of me will be slightly different, more hydrated than if I don’t drink water.

If present me chooses to, let’s say, put some money in an envelope then future me has money once I discover that envelope again, to spend. Or if present me spends money, future me doesn’t have that money, maybe there’s more money coming in or something, but that money has gone. Future me is impacted by the choices that present me is making. And I would argue that even the way future me is going to feel is in large part a result of what present me is thinking and what present me is doing that will make it harder or easier for me to feel how I want to feel.

So if present me goes out into the kitchen and does all the dishes, then future me walks out of my office and feels a little bit lighter and freer because she automatically thinks, look how nice and clean my kitchen is. The present me just lets the dishes pile up and decides I’m too tired, I don’t feel like doing them. Then future me is likely to feel overwhelmed and burdened as she thinks I really need to do these dishes, I guess I’ll just do them now. So are you with me?

Present you is creating future you, the food that we eat, whether or not we get enough sleep. whether or not we do the things that we want and need to be doing to help our businesses grow. What we say to our kids, the way we behave with our kids, whether or not we discipline our kids, whether or not we set clear expectations, whether or not we have a list of chores that we make them do or not. All these decisions, little, tiny things that present me does, impacts future me.

Now, here’s the thing, present me has this primitive brain driving, trying to drive, although my prefrontal brain, my human brain, my higher brain can come online and redirect it. But when I’m just operating on autopilot and not paying attention, my primitive brain wants to seek pleasure, avoid pain and save energy. So present me would like to just go get a piece of chocolate out of the pantry and a diet coke. Present me would like to take a nap.

Present me he has certain parts of my job that I love doing, I like recording this podcast, I like coaching. Other parts of my job, the more administrative stuff that it’s like, let’s not do that now. We’ll do that later. Present me wants to give the not so fun tasks to future me who also isn’t going to want to do it. Future me is not going to want to do it more than present me when I get there. Are you with me? So whether or not I do those tasks and get them done or I leave them for later is going to impact future me.

If I do the things that serve me, future me benefits. Many of those things mean foregoing pleasure, or being willing to be uncomfortable, or do hard things. Are you with me? Okay, so hopefully what I’m telling you, you’re like, “Yes, I know this, please tell me something I don’t know.” It’s not brand new information. But I do find it to be fascinating and useful to slow down and think about it this way at times, even though we know it, we don’t really ever stop and think about it that often.

But here is the big takeaway that I had this morning after the coaching, or I guess it was afternoon, whenever, when we did the coaching today in Be Bold that I want to add on to it because I feel like I’ve been in a little bit of a – there’s been this tension between present me and future me because I know fully well that if I drink this 44 ounce diet coke, and if you can tolerate it, be my guest. I don’t have anything against diet coke. But if I drink 44 ounces of diet coke I’m going to feel not very good later, future me is not going to feel good.

Present me is going to enjoy it but future me is going to pay the price. And so I feel like I’ve had this sort of battle going on with present me and future me. And I’m constantly trying to repress, trying to allow urges and all the things but I’m sort of in the name of hooking up my future self, I’m sort of at war with my present self. And I’ll tell you when everything changed for me. Not that it’s always easy, don’t get me wrong, but it got a heck of a lot easier when I started thinking about my relationship with my past self, past me. And first of all, just separating out past me from present me.

So let’s start with that. Let’s talk about separating those two out and then let’s talk about having a healthy relationship with past you. So here’s what I mean by separating out past me from present me. Let’s say my kids wanted to go to Crumbl Cookie because this is the example that came up on the coaching today with my lovely client. Let’s say I wanted to go get a Crumbl Cookie because my kids know, Crumbl’s 30 minutes away for us, 20 minutes maybe, it’s a bit of a drive.

But my kids know that I’m a sucker for sweets, especially a Crumbl cookie. So they’ll say, “Mom, let’s go drive to Crumbl.” And best news of all, they have a drive-in, you don’t even have to get out of the car or really talk to people, my favorite. So, “Mom, let’s go for a little drive to Coeur d’Alene and get a Crumbl cookie.” And I will always say, “Yes, let’s do it.” So we go to Crumbl Cookie and I tell myself I’m not going to eat the whole thing. But then it’s just so delicious that oftentimes I do, I eat the whole thing and it’s delicious and every bite tastes great.

I know they say that only the first and second bite of a treat are really good, I beg to differ, I think the whole thing is pretty delicious or at least I just let myself go unconscious and think that I’m enjoying the whole thing. And then about 10 minutes, 15 minutes later, future me has to pay the price. But I used to, like I said, not separate out present me from past me. I just went, “Oh, I feel so sick, I wish I wouldn’t have eaten that whole cookie. I should have just eaten a quarter of that cookie, maybe half at the most, but I certainly shouldn’t have eaten the whole thing, I feel so sick.”

And then come the thoughts like, what’s the matter with me? Why do I do this?  Am I ever going to be able the stop doing this? I’m so weak, gosh. Now, all the judgment. So I have physical discomfort, emotional discomfort now as I judge myself and I just stay in that, ugh for a while. And I tell myself I shouldn’t beat myself up. All the chatter. Anyone besides me have this chatter? The chatter. And I tell myself, I’m not going to do that again because I’m going to hook up my future self.

She wants to be feel better. She wants to fit into her clothes still. She wants to look better. She wants to be healthier, so that’s it, no more eating a whole Crumbl cookie. We will go to Crumbl and just get a quarter of a cookie, or whatever I tell myself. Because we’re not going to not go to Crumbl, come on. So this is what I used to do, hopefully some of you are relating to this, I don’t know if it’s with cookies but whatever it is substitute.

When I started separating out past me from present me, it shifted things because I went like this, “Oh, past Jody, you sure had fun eating that cookie, didn’t you? It was delicious. I hope you enjoyed it.” And as I did this, I couldn’t help but be really kind. I didn’t berate past me. I wasn’t like, “You’re disgusting, what’s the matter with you? I can’t believe.” No, I just went, “I hope you enjoyed that treat because I am sure paying the price now. But you know what? I will do that for you because I love you. Because you also do a lot of pretty awesome things that really hook me up.

In fact we’re driving in this warm car right now. And you earned the money to be able to buy this car, to be able to go to Crumbl Cookie in the first place. So I love you.” I don’t necessarily think through, by the way, the car thing. I’m just trying to illustrate for you in my mind why I have no beef with past me. Because while she does some things that present me now has to pay for and sort of regrets, wishes she would have made a different choice. I realized that there are way more things that she does that I’m so grateful for, mostly, most of the things she does, take good care of me.

Most of the things she does, make it so that I have an enjoyable life so that I get to be married to Jake Moore. I get to be the mom to these amazing kids. I get to be a life coach to all of you. I get to live in a house with central air and heat, I get to live in a free country. I get to go for a walk any time I want to outside. I get to read books because past me learned how to read. I could go on all day. Most of the things that your past self has done have hooked you up.

And every now and then, past you has done some things that now you’re paying for. And you know what? Alright, we’ll do it. We’ll take it on for past us because we love her or him. Are you with me? This has been game changing for me because as I have learned to, first of all like I said, just separate out past me from present me. Then I can see why past me did what she did. It’s not because she’s terrible. It’s not because she’s weak. It’s not because she’s a mess. And I’m certainly not still her. Think about this you guys, this is mind blowing.

Before I went to Crumbl Cookie, I wanted a cookie. I had a craving, an urge, a desire for something sweet and my kids know that, and they play on my weaknesses. And then we go and we get the Crumble cookie. But now, present me after eating the whole thing, 10 minutes later, present me does not want a Crumbl cookie, she doesn’t. In fact, it sounds disgusting in that moment because I ate too much of it. She doesn’t want a Crumble cookie, she is not the same as past me.

So when we label ourselves as the same, I’m just so weak, I have such a bad sweet tooth, I can never say no to Crumbl, then we’re going to drag that with us into our present at some point that’s going to catch up and impact future us. But if you’re just like, “Listen, I am a healthy, reasonable, logical, smart, mostly wise woman. And past me really wanted a treat and I hope she enjoyed it. And now I’m paying the price but I will because I love her but I don’t really want a Crumbl.

And when you do this, you guys, this gives you leverage over yourself. This makes it so the next time you have a choice to make, since I’m using food as the example, we’ll just keep on it. And my kids say, “Let’s go to Crumbl.” I’ll say, “You bet we will.” And I will just get a cookie and I’ll put three-quarters of it in the fridge or the freezer for another day. I’m telling you, it’s crazy how powerful this is because I don’t need to compensate for hating myself, and beating up on myself, and feeling terrible. And I’m not trying to reinforce a belief like I’m a weak terrible person who can’t say no to food.

Then I actually create a different result in my future, put me to the test. See if this is true. You can do this with so many things. You can do this with sleep. Present you is feeling however you’re feeling based on the decision past you made. Wasn’t there a Seinfeld episode about this, morning guy hates night guy because night guy stayed up too late and didn’t want to go to sleep but then morning guy is tired and has to get up. But what if morning guy or gal, morning woman was just like, “Night time woman, past woman, you had a lot of fun last night watching season five of The Crown that just came out.” So good by the way.

“I hope that was fun for you and that was fun and I’ve good memories of and it’s okay that we did that.” And now I’m tired and it’s okay, I’m going to be tired for you because I love you. But I’m also going to remember this feeling and it’s not super fun, it makes my day harder. And maybe tonight I will go to bed a little earlier and hook up future me. I don’t know. We’ll see. If not, I’m not going to be mad at you but it’s an option, just saying, it’s a choice.”

And it’s so crazy, you guys, from this place you start making such better choices for your future self. Now, I’m going to give one other example here of what I noticed as I’ve done this. And I’m going to keep doing this. I just started doing this crazy talking to myself. My client who I was coaching on this today, I just told her, “People think we’re crazy talking to ourselves. But then I realized we’re all talking to ourselves anyway.” We all have thoughts all day and we’re all talking to ourselves in our heads. We might as well do it with a little bit more intention and make sure it’s a little bit more useful.”

Okay. So here’s the last thing I want to tell you, that as I’ve done this work, I’ve started to think just slightly more consciously about my future self, not like I should and trying to guilt trip myself and using willpower. But I’m just a little bit more thoughtful of my future self, as my present self has been kinder to my past self especially when she hasn’t done what I wish she would have done. I’m going to give you an example.

When I go to church now most days I remember to grab myself some kind of cold beverage to leave in the car. I leave it in the car, I go to church, church is two hours. I get out of church, there’s a nice fresh cold beverage waiting for me and I say, “Thanks past Jody for leaving me a drink.” It’s exactly what I want right now as I drive home from church. Little tiny things I’m starting to do that are just very thoughtful to future me. Because of course as I mend my relationship with myself I’m suddenly more thoughtful and considerate of myself.

This morning I woke up a little bit earlier than I normally do in and I thought, I might just lay here and scroll social media or something. And then I thought, or I could get up and exercise. Often I will exercise after I get the kids home from school before dinner but I thought, if I just do it now, then future me will have that free time to not have to exercise and I did. And I’m not much of a morning exerciser but I think the reason that it’s so much easier for me to do is because I’m being so much kinder to myself.

I’m kinder to my past self when she doesn’t do it, instead of being mad at her I say. “It’s okay that you slept in today. I’m going to exercise now for future me. As I’m kinder to my past self then I’m kinder to my future self. And this is a huge win. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not perfect at it. I’m not perfect at it, sometimes I still want to judge myself but it’s getting easier. It’s becoming more natural, it’s so crazy, give it a try.

Separate out your past self from your present self, be kind and loving and be willing to just endure any consequences that past you has created because you love past you, and you will start loving future you and present you even more as you do. I’m serious, it works like magic. Please come to Instagram or whatever, Instagram is where I am mostly on social. I’m on Facebook and things but mostly Instagram. Come and tell me. I want to hear how it goes if you try it out. Alright, you’re amazing, I love you, thanks for listening, I’ll see you next time.

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.