Fall in Love With Your Future

When you think about the future, what do you imagine? Are you seeing piles of unpaid bills stacking up? That performance review you’re dreading? The blind date next week your friend guarantees won’t be a bust this time?

It’s time to fall in love…with your future. The truth is, nobody knows what the future will bring (not even those psychics who advertise on late-night TV). We can guess. We can figure out what is probable. There are always, however, factors we simply can’t account for. If you’re thinking of your future with fear or even dread, it’s time to check that.

Fall in love with the possibility of your future. Instead of thinking, “what could possibly go wrong?”, start thinking, “what can go right?” Imagine if everything you want to happen in the future actually does….what would that look like? Could you love the idea of your future then?

Try visualizing your future life. Introduce yourself to your future self. What are you doing? Where are you living? What is your business achieving? Have you lost that last twenty pounds? Have you met Mr. or Miss Right? Did you finally pay off all your credit cards?

If you want, try writing a love letter to your future. List out all the things you really love about it. Something like those old-timey, “O, let me count the ways I love thee” letters! You can be as sappy or formal as you want. The point is to get caught up a little in loving a wonderful future.

Why get caught up? Well, we spend so much time getting caught up imagining things going poorly. It’s absolutely warranted that we get a little lost imagining things going well.

Call it positive visualization, positive thinking, wishful thinking or a waste of time. Whatever it is to you, it’s a whole lot better than thinking about the future negatively. Singer Willie Nelson once said, “Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” We agree with Willie. The more you approach things positively, the more positive your results will be.

Key Takeaway for Everyone:
When you expect something, whether it’s a negative or a positive, you’re more likely to act in ways that will bring that expectation to reality. Why not spin the odds in your favor and start expecting greatness?

Key Takeaway for Real Estate Investors:
There’s a lot of doom and gloom out there for investors to latch on to. Whether it’s speculation about where the market is heading or the difficulty of owning several properties, you could easily get sucked into those negative ‘what-if’ scenarios. Try out some positive ‘what-if’ scenarios – don’t ignore the facts, of course,  but take care not to become a hostage to your negative emotions.

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