#120 – Do you ever miss what could have been?

When I decided to quit my coaching business in June*, I noticed I became nostalgic for my (unrealized) goals.

It felt as though I was giving up on something of high value, but it was only the future, which is to say, nothing at all.

We all know that the future doesn't exist, yet when we think of our lives and our plans, we need to think about the future in some way. In a recent blogpost, Seth Godin wrote that we put the leftovers in the fridge as a gift that our present self makes to our future self.

That's strategic thinking – as Seth states in his latest book and course, "strategy is a philosophy of becoming."

But what I was doing, and what I feel many of us do when we "futurize," is I was living off imaginary gifts that a dreamed-of future self made to my present self. I was living in a fantasy, which is the opposite of strategic thinking. It's merely a distraction, an escape from the present.

Instead of working for our today-self and laying the foundation for our tomorrow -self to exist, we put all our metaphorical eggs in a non-existing future basket. Just like a certain milkmaid with a certain pail...

When did waking up from a future fantasy help you pivot from a fruitless goal?

Love,

Carolina

*PS: Seth's course helped me wake up from my own future fantasy. When I realized that the "return on effort" with my coaching business was negative, I started to see the difference between strategy and wishful thinking.