Plan Ahead

It is virtually impossible for you to outwardly reflect today the person you desire to be tomorrow, yet your internal reflection today determines who you will be tomorrow.     –mwgrigs

Not many years ago, the ubiquity of small, silicone wristbands and their WWJD mnemonic, encouraged all who read it to contemplate, “What Would Jesus Do?” The premise being to consider your actions in comparison with how he might have acted. Taking nothing away from the Man from Nazareth, sometimes the distance and differences of culture and religion, as well as the pressures of perfection, obscure simpler, more tangible principles. In this case, understanding the power of your choices and actions today for how they influence and shape your life tomorrow.

Do you know who you want to be 5 years from now? How about 10 years? What about 20 years from now? With any hope, everyone reading this post will have envisioned a “better version” of themselves in a future that is, in all reality, just around the corner. My question for you is this: What are you choosing and doing today that will be the raw materials out of which you will fashion that “better version” of yourself? Maybe WWJD is too fanatical. Maybe it’s not the religion you ascribe to. Regardless, ask yourself, “What would my ‘better self’ do in this situation?” Then act at once and be your better self!

We have little difficulty planning ahead for the purchase of a home, charting a vacation, or anticipating the newest iPhone release. However, when it comes to planning our life we grossly underestimate the power of cause and effect and subsequently have to play catch-up, all the while lamenting, “If I had only known.” Our chief error in this line of thinking is that we believe we can cheat time, forgetting that every oak tree is a testament of the acorn “acting like the mighty oak” all of its many, many, many days.

Plan ahead. Begin to think and act today as if you were already your “better self,” and lo, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years from now, you will be that person. If you knew twenty years ago where you’d be today, how different would your decisions have been?