The Magic of Time Travel - Optimising Your Future

Introduction

I met a business owner recently; one who is in his forties and already successful in his businesses. He is at a junction in his life; whether to keep growing his businesses which is already worth millions or to sell one of his businesses (a growing cash cow) and spend more time with a young family. It is an important junction which requires careful thinking and decision making.

In this article, we look at the potential pitfalls of decision making and how to optimise your thinking to enable better outcomes.

Time Travel

Human beings (as far as we know) are the only creatures who are capable of thinking about the future, the past, and the present. Everyday, we make many decisions which affect our future. We make simple habitual or routine decisions - what to have for breakfast, where to go for dinner and so on. And of course, we go on to make reality happen.

When it comes to major decisions about our futures, our lives become more complex. Typically major decisions have long time span effects and have far reaching and far greater consequences. Good examples include career choices, job selection, life partner selection, where to live, and more. Of course, there is a whole spectrum of choice importance from the simple (breakfast choice), to medium importance (say a choice of holidays), to complex (diet choice and exercise, career, life partner).

What Could Go Wrong

In his life changing and often amusing book "Your Future Self", Hal Hershfield explains three pitfalls in working out and living our lives:

• Too much living for today. It's more certain and our emotions are anchored to the present. We are less emotionally connected to the future.
• Inadequate preparation for the future. We don't do enough of the right research, analysis and consideration of options.
• The future is likely to be different for you - your values and priorities will be different.

Living for Today

Anyone worried about the impact of AI on our lives can relax for a few years at least. The following decision making factors illustrate the complexity of personal perspectives, time travel, decision making and living well.

Using the case study in the introduction above, imagine you have a business earning $1million a year and which you can sell for say $5 million. The perspectives and choices include:

• Take the money $5 million and forgo future business growth and potential sale price of say $20 million in 5 years or so.
• Delay the gratification of $1 million now and enjoy the best parenting years of your life for the next 5 years.
• There are other potential factors - personal health, physical and mental, having to look after elderly parents, non-saleability of your business, lack of job options, and more.

The above scenario for those with young children would indicate a bias for your family. Sadly, a lot of business owners or workers early in a promising career would be more inclined to dive into work because of "the means to an end".

The bias to the present is a mix of emotion, thinking and behaviour - comfort with the moment (inaction), our environment, e.g. peer pressure drinks with the crowd and the diet / family can wait, clever marketing tricking you into bargains and shiny new objects at the expense of your budget; FOMO strikes again.

The future seems far away when it is right there tomorrow and the next day and so on.

Inadequate Preparation for the Future

We often do or don't do things which are not in the best interests of our future selves. Why? It's because we don't think deeply enough about the future. Nor do we ask others about their lived experiences in different facets of life.

A classic example of inadequate visioning about the future is procrastination. We put off "unpleasant" tasks or choices. We think that our delegated future self will find it easier to deal with the deferred tasks and decisions. The bias to today is driven by strong emotions for the present rather than the future.

How many times have you heard yourself or another say "I'll do that when blah blah"

Another example is the case study above. What can happen here is a knee jerk decision - yes or no, with no consultation with important others or a good adviser. The consequences can be catastrophic at personal or business levels.

The Future is Different

We make decisions based on our current emotional states and our current knowledge of the world. Whatever decisions we make has a "projection bias" based on the right now conditions. Yet invariably the future conditions turn out to be different which then puts us off course.

How many of you readers have a collection of music - in your smart phone, your collection of CD's and even LP's? Music which you bought from ten or more years ago. How much have your musical tastes changed over the decades such that the old CD's and records get moved on to the school fete?

How many of you have outgrown your careers and jobs? Have you made the career or even business changes?

Steps to A Better Future

Creating a better future requires time travel in your mind and planning and implementing:

• Mapping out your timelines and milestones to tick off.
• Committing to the Journey.
• Making your present life easier so that the future self is not in for a hard journey.

In case, you're wondering about all this time travel, remember we all do it already.

Timelines & Perspectives

When we plan for the future - 5, 10, 30 years plus on from now, what we are doing is creating a vision and an itinerary of goals and tasks. Great examples include:

• Your financial planner mapping out your savings for retirement.
• A business budget.
• A big holiday itinerary.

Here's the thing which anyone familiar with New Year's resolution knows. Just because you set a goal doesn't mean to say that it will work out. The reasons are outlined in the above - our values must be aligned with our vision for our future self. Our future self who still enjoys or is more comfortable with delaying disliked tasks today (eating the same unhealthy diet, avoiding tough decisions) is unlikely to change.

When mapping out the future:

• Describe the action steps which are required along a timeline.
• Set SMART goals.
• Do the research. Bounce ideas with family and trusted colleagues.
• Consider the mindset shifts required.
• Imagine the future self having achieved the goal and changes required. Work backwards and forwards in your imagination and document on a sheet of paper the timelines.
• Studies show that when your concept future self is closely aligned with your present self (values and priorities), you are more likely to succeed.(Hershfield).

Keeping On Track

Achievement of goals can be challenging because the future you and the future world is different to where you are now. Hurdles include:

• Status quo or present day bias.
• Your values and priorities can and will change.
• Your family (yes) and friends change.
• Your external world changes. New opportunities come up, technology shifts, and more.

To help you in your journey, consider the following:

• Have buddies on your journey. It's easier going to the gym with a buddy. It's easier having family and close friends who give you moral support and encouragement.
• Find suitable mentor for different sections of your journey.
• Find an accountability partner even if you have to pay for a personal coach.
• Give yourself mini rewards for milestone sections of journey. Make it bigger rewards for major milestones such as completing studies or achieving decades of good health.
• Keep a journal recording your progress and learnings.
• Allow yourself to make changes and pivots in your journey.
• Be gentle on yourself if you do not meet goals and deadlines. There is no such thing as perfection!

Live Today

The work which you do today to live in the moment and create the best version of yourself is the essential foundation for a better world for your future self.

One of the best parables on life is "The Tortoise and the Hare". A life of almost endless partying invariably shifts suffering to your future self. Instead, a life of steady progress is likely to get you to the finish line (wherever you wish) and leave a better life in the future.

Modern life, at least in the Western world is quite illustrative. Irrespective of countries and economies, it is possible to work hard, have a pretty good lifestyle and even "retire" early and spend the remainder of your life with choices on "work" and play.

Here are some tips for the journey today:

• Work steadily without sacrificing family or personal time.
• Save money starting from early in your work life.
• Accept positive emotions with the not so positive ones. Bundle them together - it's life and it helps you to stay on the sunny side. Hang out with family and friends to build more positive energies within yourself and the people around you.
• Set mini-milestones in your calendar - work, education, fitness, family, travel, treats, friends, hobbies, etc.
• Celebrate milestones.
• Practise meditation, yoga or Tai Chi. Get a good therapeutic massage each month.
• Build your circles of connections and friends. See if you can convert relationships into deeper friendships.

SUMMARY

Time travel is an awesome and useful capability for each one of us. No, we don't need a physical time machine like Doctor Who.

Much more powerful is our ability to envisage our future lives, use our past experiences as a positive learning guide, and plan our steps to our future self.

There are potential pitfalls in our future journey. Yet, with careful thought, help from family and colleagues, and consciously living in the present, we can craft a better life for our future selves.

All the best!

Frank Choy

25 June 2023