Winston Churchill said, "If you are going through hell, keep going." We all battle our inner demons on a daily basis. The infernal struggle can be overwhelming very often. In this tussle of life, very often, we can tend to lose the big picture. That is where our future self helps!
Imagine if we have a sight of what we should be like 10 years from today, would that not give us immense perspective? The minute bickering with your colleague, the rejection from someone dear to you, the biker who veered into the car lane and all fade away into nothingness. Perspective matters. You should always work for your future self. This is where we must make a distinction between urgent goals and important goals. I keep making reference to Brian Tracy's Eat The Frogs because Brian has brilliantly captured the essence of working for our future self. The important goals are for our future self whereas the urgent goals are for our present self.
Urgent goals generally tend to be based on the requirements of others. Submissions, deadlines, mails and the list goes on. Does that mean that urgent goals are not important? Of course they are important. The idea is that urgent goals will anyway be completed by us because they generally involve other people who are dependent on us for the same. Important goals are easy to procrastinate. Easy to brush aside. Important goals reward gradually and not instantly. But important goals are the way to live the life of our dreams.
We have expectations from our friends, our family, our spouse and so on. Why not have expectations from ourselves? Why do we not set standards in our life? Standards for the quality of people in our life, our living, our profession to name a few? We must have a clear sight of what our future self should be like. It acts as a script for us to fall back on when things go wrong and everything seems pointless. Have clear set goals for your future self.
Visualize in great detail what your financial status should be, your health, your family and relationships, your hobbies and your legacy! Have a Big, Hairy and Audacious Goal (BHAG). It should keep you awake on certain nights thinking how are you going to achieve your goals for your future self. If the small things in life bother us, clearly we do not have big things going on for us.
You want to have a valuable social circle? Hustle and improve your social skills. Learn to communicate effectively, efficiently and effortlessly. Improve on your ability to deliver jokes. Want to be a successful professional? Break down the requirements for achieving the same and then trace the path to achieve each micro goal.
I have coined an acronym for myself. L.I.C. I was inspired to develop an acronym for myself seeing an immensely successful and humble personality who calls himself L.E.D. I shall not elaborate on it for it is not for me to do so ;)
L.I.C. stands for Lawyer. Influencer. Coach. To be a lawyer, I am doing what I can and more. I am interning in a brilliant law firm and honing my advocacy skills. I am in my final semester of LLB. I have been selected for LLM from Christ University, Bangalore in Intellectual Property Rights and Trade Laws which I feel should be a very obvious as the present and future is all based on technology! I have started 2 riding clubs focusing on the college youth. One is specifically for my college called the SJCL Riders. The other one is Bikers for the Youth. Both are still in their nascent stage but are part of my endeavour to expand my influence by building a community. Our partnership firm, Tattvamasi is also getting set up with the launch date decided to be 01/01/2022. It is scary and exciting. Finally, coach. I do not want to be a self-acclaimed coach as people are trusting us with the most intimate details of their lives while seeking help. We must have research backed tools that enable us to give professional help. My first step to ICF (International Coaching Federation, the world's largest association of coaches) accreditation has commenced with the Regal Coach Certification (RCC), an in house programme, provided by Regal Unlimited which is one of India's leading coaching, mentoring and coach training firms. RCC will act as my stepping stone to ACC and PCC which are the different levels of certification. Always invest in yourself. Period.
When you have a vision of your future self, it is highly likely that you will manifest it through sheer focus, will, effort and determination. Let us all achieve what we want to be!