“How do I guess at the future? Based on the omens of the present. The secret is here in the present. If you pay attention to the present, you can improve upon it. And, if you improve on the present, what comes later will also be better.” -Wise seer, The Alchemist
Predicting someone’s future is not overly difficult. In fact, most people live incredibly predictable lives.
Often all you need to do to is look at someone’s present in order to predict their future.
Here’s why.
You Are What You Repeatably Do
“Your daily routine is the clearest indicator of where you’re going.” -Benjamin P. Hardy
Action shapes personality. Thus, what you repeatably do becomes you.
Your daily routine can either take you to right where you want to be in life, or if you’re like most people, your daily routine can take you in a downward spiral.
I wish creating your ideal future was as easy as deciding today who you want to become and then acting intentionally every day in alignment with the future you see for yourself.
However, the issue for many, is they’re stuck in a daily routine that’s driven by impulse and addiction rather than their deepest dreams and desires.
This can take months, if not years, to unlearn and the rewire the brain out of these addictive habits in order to truly transform into a state where you can think and act both clearly and deliberately.
It will take the deliberate reshaping of your environment by removing anything from your life that conflicts with the person you want to become so that you can finally be the architect of your future rather than a victim of your environment.
Said author, Marshall Goldsmith,
“If we do not create and control our environment, our environment creates and controls us.”
The Quality of the Information You Consume Reveals Who You Will Become
“The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.” -Jim Rohn
If you spend the majority of your time over the next five years browsing the internet, consuming low-quality information I can already predict your future; it’ll look much like your present, but worse.
Nothing stays fixed. If you’re not growing, you’re dying. Almost every bit of time spent on social media is time wasted. It’s time that you’ve spent rather than time you’ve invested.
While reading, second to creating, is one of the greatest investments you can make with your time. Reading should stimulate you with new ideas, change your perspective, and adapt how you engage yourself in the world.
As you begin to immerse yourself with new and inspirational inputs your present and future will quickly improve.
As Zig Ziglar once wrote,
“Your input determines your outlook. Your outlook determines your output, and your output determines your future.”
If you read and applied the knowledge of even one good book over the next year, your life would be radically different. Read and apply the knowledge of 10 good books, however, and you’d be a completely different person.
In Conclusion
You are what you repeatably do and the knowledge you consume creates you.
Be deliberate in shaping your environment and remove anything from your life and daily routine that doesn’t serve to aid you in creating the future you see for yourself.
If you spend your time consuming low-quality information such as; social media, the news, and endless internet links, you’ll wind up spending your time in the present at the expense of your future dreams and ambitions.
The key is to pay attention to the present in order to improve upon it for a better future.
