If you’re feeling pulled in too many directions, it’s time to shift your focus toward what really matters.
Benjamin Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now offers a blueprint to eliminate distractions and make serious progress toward your most important goals.
Let’s dive into two powerful steps you can use to clarify your long-term priorities and “uncommit” from goals that don’t serve you.
Step 1: Clarify Your Contextual Purpose (Even If Your Past Feels Heavy)
When your past feels like a weight, it can be tough to even think about future goals, let alone achieving them. But here’s the thing: your past doesn’t define you—it only informs you. Benjamin Hardy emphasizes that you can transform your future by shifting your focus from what’s behind you to what lies ahead. This is where clarifying your contextual purpose comes in, giving you a forward-looking direction, no matter how challenging your past may have been.
How to Do This if You Feel Stuck in the Past:
- Focus on What You Can Control: You can’t rewrite the past, but you can reframe your future by deciding what matters most to you now. This means identifying three areas of your life where you want to grow. Maybe you want to rebuild trust in relationships, or perhaps you want to improve your mental health after years of struggling.
- Example: If trauma has impacted your relationships, one priority might be to focus on building emotional resilience and trust in yourself. A 12-month goal could be to practice self-compassion daily or to study Source’s teachings and observe nature.
- Set Goals with Kindness: When you’ve been through tough experiences, it’s important to set goals that challenge you but don’t overwhelm you. Start small and build momentum. If a priority is rebuilding your finances after a setback, set a 12-month goal of saving a small, manageable amount each month. As you make progress, you’ll start to feel more in control of your future.
- Reframing Your Thinking: It’s easy to get caught in the mindset of “I’m behind” or “I’ll never catch up.” But thinking about how you can 10X your progress forces you to consider new possibilities. It might mean seeking out opportunities you never thought you deserved, like a better job or new relationships that align with who you want to be.
Step 2: Eliminate Lesser Goals (When You’re Battling Old Habits)
If your past is holding you back (in your mind), it’s likely you’re still carrying old habits, thought patterns, or even relationships that aren’t serving your future self. Eliminating lesser goals is all about shedding these emotional and behavioral weights that keep you tethered to past mistakes, traumas, or self-doubt.
How to Identify These Lesser Goals:
- Release Guilt and Shame: Ask yourself, “What am I holding onto from my past that my future self would let go of?” Often, the answer is guilt or shame over past mistakes or failures. These emotions can create habits of self-sabotage, like procrastination, avoidance, or settling for less than you deserve. Your future self wouldn’t be weighed down by these feelings—they would see them as experiences that led to growth.
- Example: If you’ve spent years avoiding new opportunities because of a past failure, consider how your future self would respond differently. Would they be afraid to try again, or would they embrace risk with the knowledge that growth comes through trying, not avoiding?
- Be Honest About Your Patterns: Eliminating lesser goals means identifying the things that trigger unproductive behaviors. This could be people, environments, or even thoughts that keep pulling you back. If you know you spend hours ruminating on what you did wrong in the past, you need to replace that pattern with something more constructive—like writing about how you’re making different choices today.
- Example: If social media makes you feel like you’re not good enough because of where you are in life, your future self might choose to set limits on screen time or unfollow accounts that reinforce feelings of inadequacy.
Addressing Trauma and Mistakes: Rewriting Your Story
When you’ve been through trauma or made big mistakes, it can feel like your future is just an extension of that pain or regret.
But Hardy’s approach is about becoming the author of your future instead of letting the past continue to shape your life. Here are a few things to keep in mind:
- Your Future Self is Compassionate: Imagine the person you’re becoming—a version of you that’s kinder, stronger, and more forgiving. This future self wouldn’t judge your past; they would understand it. Let that vision of yourself guide your decisions today. Ask, “What would my future self do to heal, grow, and move forward?”
- Trauma Can Be a Catalyst: While no one wishes for hardship, many people find that the challenges they faced become the foundation for their greatest strengths. Use your experiences to fuel a future where you can be both successful and at peace. For instance, if you’ve faced mental health struggles, your future self could be someone who advocates for others or uses that experience to make compassionate choices in relationships.
What to Do When You Feel Guilty for Past Behavior and Emotional Outbursts
Guilt is a powerful emotion, especially when we know that our actions or words have hurt others. It’s easy to get trapped in a cycle of regret, replaying past mistakes and feeling like we can never move forward.
But while guilt can weigh heavily on us, it can also be an opportunity for growth, repair, and transformation. Here’s how to handle guilt in a way that helps you heal and move forward.
1. Acknowledge the Impact of Your Actions
The first step is to fully acknowledge how your behavior may have affected others. It’s not about dwelling in shame, but about taking responsibility.
By facing what you’ve done head-on, you stop running from it and start to gain the power to make things right.
- Reflect with Compassion: Instead of replaying the situation with self-criticism, try to reflect on what led to your emotional outbursts. Was it stress, fear, or unresolved emotions? Understand that while these factors don’t excuse your behavior, they give context for your reactions.
- Understand Their Perspective: If possible, put yourself in the other person’s shoes. How might your words or actions have impacted them emotionally? Acknowledging their feelings will help you approach any apology with sincerity.
2. Apologize Honestly and Specifically
An honest and heartfelt apology can go a long way in mending relationships and easing your guilt.
When apologizing, be specific about what you’re sorry for and take responsibility for your actions. Don’t shift blame or make excuses—own your behavior.
- Use “I” Statements: Focus on your role in the situation. For example:
- Instead of saying, “I’m sorry you got upset,” say, “I’m sorry I raised my voice and said things I didn’t mean.”
- Acknowledge the Consequences: Demonstrate that you understand the impact of your actions. For instance, “I realize that my behavior hurt you, and I’m committed to doing better moving forward.”
3. Forgive Yourself for Being Human
It’s essential to remember that everyone makes mistakes. Part of moving forward is learning to forgive yourself.
This doesn’t mean excusing your behavior, but accepting that you are capable of change.
We often cling to guilt because we believe it helps us atone, but holding onto it indefinitely can trap us in self-judgment and prevent real growth.
- Practice Self-Compassion: When self-critical thoughts arise, counter them with kindness. Remind yourself that you are more than your mistakes. For example, if you think, “I always mess up,” reframe it with, “I’ve made mistakes, but I’m learning and improving.”
- Learn from the Guilt: Guilt can be a helpful guide when it pushes us toward positive change. Use it to inform better choices in the future, asking yourself, “How can I react differently next time?” or “What can I learn from this experience?”
4. Commit to Growth and Change
Actions speak louder than words. To truly ease your guilt and repair your relationships, focus on the changes you can make moving forward. How can you act in ways that align with your future self, who is more in control of their emotions?
- Identify Emotional Triggers: If certain situations tend to set off emotional outbursts, spend time identifying those triggers. Is it stress, exhaustion, or feeling overwhelmed? Once you know your triggers, you can work on strategies to manage them before they escalate.
- Communicate Better: Moving forward, commit to improving your communication skills. Practice pausing before reacting, expressing yourself calmly, and listening to others’ perspectives. Your future self can be someone who handles conflict with grace, even when emotions run high.
Moving Beyond Guilt to Create Peace
Holding onto guilt from the past can keep you stuck, making it hard to become the person you aspire to be. But guilt doesn’t have to be a life sentence.
By acknowledging your mistakes, making amends, and committing to change, you free yourself from the weight of the past.
More importantly, you start to become someone who is not only aware of their past behavior but is actively shaping a better future.
Remember, your future self is not someone without flaws—they are someone who has learned from their mistakes, taken responsibility, and chosen to grow from them. Give yourself permission to step into that future, one small change at a time.
Moving Forward with Grace
Eliminating lesser goals and focusing on long-term priorities doesn’t mean ignoring your past—it means **choosing to grow beyond it**.
When you’ve been hurt or made mistakes, it’s easy to feel defined by those moments. But by clarifying your contextual purpose and releasing lesser goals that tie you to those feelings, you’re giving yourself the space to heal and build a future that aligns with the person you truly want to become.
Remember, every decision you make is an opportunity to either hold onto the past or move toward the future. Your future self is waiting for you—choose to meet them with compassion and strength.
