Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Key Takeaways
- Ask yourself, ‘What would the future me do?’ to align your actions with your goals.
- Shift your mindset by behaving like the person you want to become, focusing on necessary actions and habits.
- Evaluate how you spend your time and ensure it reflects your aspirations for business success.
- Identify the future you clearly, considering daily activities and emotions for better alignment with goals.
- Actively implement changes that reflect the future you, even if it feels uncomfortable at first.
What would you be doing if you had already achieved the goal that you’re so intent on working towards? How would you be behaving? Where would you be spending your time? Asking these questions can help shift your mindset, and your behaviour, to align with your goal and help you get there much, much faster. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that you should go out and buy that supercar, or book those first-class tickets, or just generally start throwing money around as if you were rolling in it! Again, we’re talking about aligning your actions, your behaviour, so that you’re making decisions and focusing your time on the things that will really make all the difference in your business, and in your life.
What would the future me do?
It’s a simple question. But it’s one of the most powerful tools I’ve come back to again and again – for myself and with my clients. Because it cuts through the endless noise of what you should be doing, what you’re not doing yet, what you’ll do when the time is right – and replaces all of that with one clear question: if I were already that person, what would I be doing right now?
Why “acting as if” actually works
The concept is straightforward. Rather than treating your goals as distant destinations, you start behaving as if you’ve already arrived. Not in a delusional way – I’m not saying go out and buy the Aston Martin or book the first-class tickets if you can’t afford them. I mean a mindset shift. A behavioural shift.
You act as the person you’re becoming, rather than waiting to become them first.
Here’s a simple example. If you want to meditate regularly, stop putting it on the to-do list as something you should do more of. Ask instead: what does a person who meditates regularly do? They meditate. So meditate. Five minutes. Today. The identity comes first, the habit follows.
The same applies to running. To writing. To building a business. If you want to be a writer, write. Every day. Because that’s what writers do. Not because you’ve earned the title yet, but because the title follows the behaviour – not the other way around.
Applying it to your business
This is where it gets really useful. Let’s say your goal is to build a six-figure business. Have an honest look at how you’re spending your time this week. Are you scrolling social media, tweaking graphics in Canva, fixing broken code on your website, transcribing interviews? Ask yourself: is this what a person running a six-figure business would be doing?
Probably not. That person would be focused on the things that actually move the needle – business development, content creation, client work, strategic decisions. The low-value tasks would be delegated.
So start shifting. Not all at once – but deliberately. Look at your calendar and ask: does this week look like the week of the person I’m trying to become? If not, what’s one thing you can change?
Apply the same thinking to who you spend time with. A person at the level you want to reach would be surrounding themselves with people at a similar or slightly higher level – mastermind groups, communities, peer relationships with people who are working on the same kinds of goals. That doesn’t mean remortgaging your house to join an expensive programme. It means being intentional about who you’re learning from and who you’re spending time with.
What if you’re already successful but burning out?
This question is just as useful if you’ve already built something – but you’ve built it on hustle. If you’ve recreated the stress of your corporate career in a different container. If you’re technically free but never actually stop.
Ask yourself: what would the me who has a truly sustainable business do? That person has systems. They have support. They turn off at a reasonable time and the business doesn’t collapse. They take weekends. They take holidays. And they’ve built the whole thing on a foundation that doesn’t require them to be constantly on.
Here’s something worth sitting with: if you build a successful business based on hustle and stress, you’ll have a successful business based on hustle and stress. The behaviours you establish now become the foundation you build on. So if you want to eventually work three days a week, finish at four, never work Fridays – start behaving like that person sooner than feels comfortable. Set the boundary. Turn off the laptop. Take the afternoon.
Your business will not collapse.
Getting clear on what the future you looks like
For this to work, you need a clear picture of who the future you actually is. Not vague – specific. What does their day look like? How do they feel? What have they built? What have they let go of?
Some questions worth sitting with:
What is your ideal day – hour by hour, if you could design it entirely? What work are you doing, and what have you stopped doing? What does your income look like, and where does it come from? How do you feel – energised, present, fulfilled? Who are you spending your time with?
Once you have that picture, work backwards. What would that person be doing this week? This morning?
And then do that.
WWTFMD. What would the future me do? It’s worth putting on a bracelet.
Acting as if means behaving like the person you want to become, rather than waiting until you’ve achieved the goal first. It’s a mindset and behavioural shift – spending your time on the things that person would prioritise, surrounding yourself with the people they’d spend time with, and making decisions the way they would make them.
Start by getting specific about what your future self looks like – what they do, how they feel, what they’ve built, what they’ve let go of. Then ask: what would that person be doing today? This week? The answer usually reveals a gap between where you’re spending your time now and where you should be focusing it.
WWTFMD stands for “What Would The Future Me Do?” – a question designed to cut through overthinking and connect your daily behaviour to your longer-term goals. Instead of asking what you should be doing, you ask what the person you’re becoming would already be doing – and then do that.
Start by recognising that the behaviours you establish now become the foundation you build on. If you want a sustainable business eventually, you need to start building in the boundaries now – not later, not when you’ve earned it. Turn off at a reasonable time. Protect your weekends. Build systems that don’t depend entirely on you. The business won’t collapse.
Ask what a person at the level you want to reach would be spending their time on – and compare that to how you’re actually spending yours. High-leverage activities like business development, client work, and content creation usually belong on that list. Low-value tasks that can be delegated usually don’t.
3 responses
Indeed Anna, imagining ourselves in the future results in brain activation, and so it is a catalyst of awareness. Thanks for your video!
Great episode (and podcast!) – thank you for this. I found it very useful.
Really glad it resonates!