Every time you choose your Future Self over your current self, there is risk. But being your Future Self now and doing what your Future Self would do immediately creates results beyond anything you’ve done before. Yes, with deliberate practice comes failure. Yes, being in the arena can lead to battle scars. It’s better to fail at the level of your Future Self than succeed as your current self. How much does your schedule reflect your Future Self?

Step #5 to being your Future Self is automating and systemizing your Future Self. How can you better systemize your desired Future Self? What could you simplify and eliminate from your life, to free yourself from decision fatigue and lesser goals? What barriers and filters could you create to protect your time and attention? What could you automate, such as a weekly investing strategy? Where could you find a who to handle some of the hows that are outside your zone of genius?22

If you want to become your desired Future Self, play at their level as quickly as possible. Commit at the level of your Future Self. Adapt at the level of your Future Self. Your current self is clearly not there yet, and will therefore need serious training, humility, and feedback.

By seeing your Future Self as a different person, you appreciate that this person sees things differently than you do now. They care about different things than you do now. They’d act differently than you would now.

It is not the past, but the future, that drives a person’s actions and behaviors. All goals can be placed in two categories: approach or avoidance. Connected to your Future Self, you can appreciate, embrace, and love the present. Connection to your Future Self creates purpose and meaning in the present. The more connected you are to your longer-term Future Self, the better and wiser your decisions today.

Rather than putting your Future Self in deeper debt, make your Future Self wealthier. Continually position your Future Self for freedom of time, money, relationships, and overall sense of purpose.

Whoever you’re being, right now is the evidence of your Future Self.

Your level of faith in and commitment toward your Future Self is evidenced by everything you do, and every thought you think.

Getting your schedule to reflect your Future Self is a major and important step that very few people fully embrace. It will never be convenient to stop the firehose of lesser goals. They will never stop coming. Most externally successful people still fall into the trap of being managed by time, rather than owning and creating their experience of time.

Truth #4 is that the more measurable and detailed your Future Self, the faster you’ll progress toward your goals. Effective progress comes with a combination of measurable metrics, a vivid vision of your Future Self, and clear mile markers. Without these elements, people wander.

Make your Future Self vivid and detailed by writing a letter from your Future Self to your current self. Choose whatever time frame you want.

The quality of connection you have with your own Future Self determines the quality of your life and behaviors now.

Are you willing to put the important before the urgent? Are you committed to your current self or your Future Self? Are you driven by short-term and urgent battles, or lifting your gaze to be your Future Self now? Without question, taking ownership of your time demands commitment and courage. Busy can be a comfort zone despite knowing you’re being ineffective. Living busy and trapped in lesser goals allows you to avoid the truth of your Future Self.

Your actions come from your identity. When your identity is rooted in current commitments, rather than your Future Self, your actions are weak and unaligned with your goal. The only way to realize your Future Self is to be your Future Self now.

Godin’s story and ideas bring us to the 7th and final step of being your Future Self, and that is aggressive completion. The completion of projects. The completion of goals and objectives. Imperfect completion. Consistent completion. The completion of better and better projects.