Design Your Future summary

The worst thing about being stuck in a soul-crushing cycle of predictability is how hard it is to break out of it. In fact, people often only take decisive action when fate forces their hand, for example, when they’re laid off or get sick. So what stops us from making those all-important changes?

It’s usually fear that keeps us locked into the status quo. Nothing scares us more than the unknown – as the saying goes, “better the devil you know.” Sure, things might suck right now, but what if they got worse? Then there’s the fact that change can be difficult, even if it’s ultimately for the best. Just think of something as simple as changing your cable provider: even if the present one drives you up the wall, buying, installing and acclimatizing to a new setup is a pain.

We’ve seen that fear often holds us back from making changes, but why? After all, we all know that getting fired or losing a partner are possibilities even if we stick with the status quo – some things just aren’t within our control. That suggests that the real obstacle isn’t a rational calculation of possible outcomes, but our inability to imagine and connect with our future selves.

Take the work of economist Hal Hershfield at the UCLA School of Management. His research uses MRI scans to look at people’s brain activity when they think about the future. When Hershfield asked subjects to picture themselves three to five years from now, their brains reacted as if they were thinking about a complete stranger. That goes a long way toward explaining why it can be hard getting out of a dead-end job you hate – it’s virtually impossible to picture what another half decade in your current position will do to you!

Meditation might just be the most powerful tool there is for improving your life. Why? Well, it’s a key part of the awakening process we’ve already mentioned. In this blink, we’ll take a closer look at how it works.

One of the reasons we end up feeling stuck in the present status quo is habit: we’re basically running on autopilot when we going through our daily chores. That’s where meditation comes it. The practice is all about creating a gap between stimulus and response, and learning to observe thoughts dispassionately without immediately reacting to them.

Sometimes all you want to do when you’ve had a long day at the office is relax on the sofa with a glass of wine and zone out in front of the TV. While that can be relaxing and fun, it’s often little more than a waste of time. So how do you position yourself to do something more rewarding with those precious after-work evenings and weekends?

Well, the key is to disrupt ingrained habits. It’s not about giving up everything you enjoy doing, but rather developing a healthier relationship with things like entertainment or alcohol. So why not challenge yourself to go a hundred days without drinking, or abstaining from TV and Netflix for the next three months? If you’re hopelessly addicted to your smartphone, you could try declaring your home a cell phone-free zone for two weeks.

High achievers have hundreds of goals, but very little time and extra energy to pursue them all. So what do you do if you want to learn Japanese, tone your abs and get that promotion you’ve been angling for? Well, you’re much more likely to succeed if you focus on one target at a time.

Sounds pretty commonsensical, right? But here’s the rub: it’s so obvious a notion that lots of strivers and go-getters end up overlooking it. That’s something the author has seen in his clients time and time again. Ambitious people often pursue multiple projects at the same time, spread themselves too thin and end up feeling frustrated by their lack of progress.

The sense that you’re simply drifting through life without really accomplishing anything is a huge source of anxiety. That said, focusing your efforts and actually completing things that matter to you isn’t easy, especially if you’ve got a million other commitments. Luckily, there a couple of tools you can start using today to help you.

Let’s start with scorecards. A scorecard is essentially a list of things you want to achieve within a certain timeframe. Simply ticking them off as you work through your targets is a great visualization of your progress, which is bound to inspire you to keep going. Take it from the author. He set himself three targets for a 90-day period: avoid TV, skip dessert and get a full eight hours of sleep each night.

In 2010, Facebook employees spray-painted one of the company’s core beliefs on the walls of its headquarters: “Done is better than perfect.” That’s an idea all high achievers should take to heart – after all, the desire to do things perfectly all too often gets in the way of getting anything done at all!

That’s a bitter pill to swallow if you’re the go-getter type. Chances are, you’re all about 120 percent motivation, inspiration and success at all times. But here’s the thing: that’s just not realistic. There’ll be days when you’ll feel tired, overwhelmed or out of your depth, and simply incapable of knocking it out of the park. That shouldn’t distract you from an important truth, however – even if you’re “only” hitting 75, 50 or even 25 percent of your daily targets, you’re still that much closer to your goal.