Your Future Is The Product Of Your Present
Does your identity affect your behavior? Or is it the other way around?
Is who you are influencing what you do or vice versa?
The answer is yes.
Your identity does affect your behavior and what you do also influences who you are. It’s not either-or but both-and.
Instead of asking which affects which, perhaps, the better question to ask would be what comes first?
- If you have an identity of a writer, then you will take on the writer’s lifestyle. And such lifestyle will reinforce your identity.
- If you consider yourself to be a kind person, you will behave kindly towards others. In turn, your kind act will cement the fact that you are kind.
Once you understand your identity in terms of your self-worth and uniqueness and see what matters to you, you will strive to living a life that aligns with who you are. Your identity and your destiny in life are bound as one.
Who is your future self?
The current you is the sum of all of your past experiences. You are how you have lived so far. Likewise, the way you live in the present is the very ingredient that will make your future self. If your present is the sum of your past, then your future will be the sum of your present. How you live today matters because that will eventually be who you are in the future.
However, you can reverse-engineer the process and decide for yourself what your future self is going to be now. Imagine that your future self as your present identity. Then you will adjust your behavior to fit your present lifestyle to how your future self would live.
You have already established that your self-worth comes from the fact that you are made in God’s image. Your internal value is that you are a child of God. If this is who you really are, how would your present life be different? What would you do in this or that situation if you are God’s image? And if you were to continue living this way, where would you be physically, emotionally, and spiritually in 10 years? Take ten minutes to write about your physical, emotional, and spiritual future self.
You also established that your uniqueness comes from how you have responded to your past experiences. As a result, you understand what you value and are able to envision how you help others as you stay true to yourself. Imagine that your future self is doing exactly what you have envisioned your future self would do. You are serving others in your field of profession as your future self. You are living out your vision. Now, take another ten minutes and write about your professional future self.
What you do now shapes who you are in the future. And how you change what you do now is to change the identity of your future self. It’s like the chicken and the egg. They influence each other. But the starting point, the first cause, is for you to imagine what your future self will be like today. When you assume your future self today and own your identity, you will transform your life.
Where are you going? You can decide that for yourself and change your life.
