Speaker 1What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast-shaped guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice. You might have noticed something's a little bit different about this episode and that is because this is the first episode of our brand new series, the Future Self series. So as I'm recording this, I am in my final few weeks of pregnancy and if you're listening to this, I will have had my baby, which feels actually insane to say. But before I went on maternity leave, I really wanted to make sure that this podcast still gave you all the value that you're used to and maybe even more than usual, we have spent a huge amount of time on this series. Obviously we have the stats and so many of you have followed the podcast and subscribed to the podcast and it didn't really feel right. So I'm going to make sure that you're subscribed to the podcast as well. If you haven't, make sure to do so because we want you to feel right not to be giving you value every single week in a way that you expect from us and we want to be able to give you. And unfortunately there is really no such thing as maternity leave in the podcasting world, which I don't think is spoken about enough, by the way, particularly because all of the top podcasts are run and hosted by men. So maybe that's why it's not something that tends to be spoken about enough. But as I've said, we've worked on this for a really long time. And I want to give you some insight as to why we've decided to do this exactly how we have. So podcasts like us rely heavily on platform algorithms and sponsorship. So we've worked on this for a really long time and I want to give you some insight as to why we've decided to do this which are first of all what have allowed us to keep this free for the past five years. And I really didn't want everything that I and the team have worked so hard to build here over the years to suffer as a consequence of my maternity leave or not to be able to keep the team on full time just because I was having a baby. That like wasn't even something that ever crossed my mind. But of course that means that we need to keep things going. And of course I also wanted to give myself a chance to spend time with my newborn too, which are precious moments that I will never get back. So if anyone who is self employed will know that this is a really tricky one for any self employed mothers to navigate and is something I definitely want to discuss on the podcast in future too. I feel like it's nowhere near talked about enough. But essentially a few months ago, we had a meeting with the ominous title podcast future planning. And we really wanted to weigh up all of our options. So the options were a we could go quiet for six months B we could put together episode reruns and hope that nobody noticed or hope that everyone was very happy with it. Or C we could obviously have my husband take over given he's a mother. So I think that's a really good idea. And I think that's a really good idea. And I think that's the one who knocked me up in the first place. We had a lot of discussions around this. And our main aim was to be able to keep providing value. And that was the headline that we came to with everything. How do we keep being able to maintain and provide value in the way that you expect from this podcast and the way that hopefully this podcast has become like part of your routine over that entire time, whilst also being able to give me the time to spend with my newborn in a way that I deserve to be able to have. All that to say that this episode is the first part of a 12 part series, one that is going to be completely free and has been designed and produced and thought through to every single extent to help you reverse engineer the life you want. So I think something that I keep coming back to again and again is that one of the main reasons I've got to this place right here in my life is because I feel like I've spent a lot of the last decade kind of designing my life backwards, reverse engineering exactly what I wanted to do. And I think that's a really good example of where I want to get to. When we talk about goal setting or manifestation or any of these different things, all of that comes from a point of what do I want my life to look like and how can I work back from this point? And that kind of became the light bulb moment for this series. When we were looking at designing every part of this series, we kind of went back into the data. We were looking back at the most popular episodes. So like what your favourites have been, what our DMs have been full of. And we came to the conclusion that we wanted to create a genuinely useful free almost course type series. Based on the topics you love, all designed around the concept of reverse engineering your ideal life. So in order to do this, while I'm gone, I'm going to be passing the mic to some incredible experts who are going to take you through episodes we've worked really, really hard to pull together. This has been planned so meticulously. These are people whose concepts and value and knowledge I absolutely love and who've genuinely shaped how I think about mindset, identity, money, health, relationships, social media. They are all at the top in their fields. I've handpicked every single one of them because I didn't feel comfortable kind of sharing this mic with just anyone. All of them have been invited into the office to basically break down their own version of formulas that they've used to design specific parts of their own lives across their expert topic. It has come together so well. And of course, if you know me, you will know that there has to be a specific structure to all of this. So you know exactly what you're going to get over the next 12 weeks. I am so excited to be here. I'm so excited. This has taken so long to plan and it has come together so well. This first episode is the start of part one, the first of three parts. And I'm going to put the plan on screen here for you. Essentially, part one is going to help you figure out what your plan actually looks like. So what that end goal life looks like and what the plan is to actually get there. Then part two is going to look at how you can actually execute that plan effectively. So how you're going to stick to it, how you're going to use habit theory, how you're going to put this into your strategy in terms of being able to not just have like an amazing vision board and never actually get there. And then finally, part three is going to look at how you can perfect the systems around you to help your plan run as smoothly as possible and maintain not just over the next few months, but over the next year, three years, five years, 10 years, so that you have a very, very direct and accurate plan as to how you are going to build the exact life you want. It is a complete, well thought through plan on every single topic that you are going to need to think about in order to be able to build that life. So for this first episode, there's genuinely no one I would rather open the entire series with than the woman I am about to introduce to you. Today, I'm going to be passing the mic over to one of your all time favorite guests, Roxy Nafusi. Roxy is the author of Manifest, a Sunday Times bestseller, which became an absolute phenomenon and has sold over a million copies in 37 languages. She's an award winning mindset coach and also known for speaking on stages all over the world about exactly this. But what I personally find most impressive is that she's taken something that used to feel a little bit distant from me. It used to feel a little bit too maybe woo woo or spiritual in a way that I wasn't. And she's made it into something that makes so much sense. In this episode, she's going to be kind of unpacking that mindset shift that has to happen before any of the planning stuff actually works. And I think that is so important because I think it's really easy to sit down every single year, maybe multiple times a year, and plan your future. And that's great. But actually, if you haven't done the underlying work, you're probably not going to actually get there. You're not in the right place yet to be able to make the big changes in your life or they're not going to stick. So we're going to be talking about manifestation theory, the specific mindset traps that high achieving women particularly fall into, and the identity beliefs that your best future self holds. If part of you doesn't quite believe your ideal life is possible right now, I want you to leave this episode feeling motivated, convinced, genuinely deserving of every single bit of it. Roxy's also given me an exercise for you and her top reading recommendations for this week's Working Hard newsletter. So that will be sent out the day after the episode is released. So make sure you are subscribed if you want to put everything in this episode into action. As I said, I wanted it to almost feel like a free course. And that means that there is work for you to do. Like it's all well and good you're listening to this episode on your commute. If you want to actually get the results, then you've got to do the work. So I will add the link to the newsletter in the description. I cannot wait for you to hear all of these episodes. I will be back at the beginning of them all to introduce the wonderful experts and to set up what we're actually going to be talking about. Because as I said, all of this has been worked through in detail. So it's absolutely perfect for this podcast and our audience. But for now, I'm going to hand it over to Roxy. Hey, everyone, it's Roxy.
Speaker 2Firstly, thank you so much, Grace, for that lovely introduction. I am so honoured and genuinely so excited to be here. When Grace called me to ask if I wanted to be a teacher in this series, I obviously couldn't accept the invitation. I was like, I'm not going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a teacher. I'm going to be a As some of you might know, I've been a guest on the podcast a couple of times already, and I've absolutely loved it both times. I really adore the community that Grace has created, and I am in awe of everything she's achieved. I'm such a huge fan of hers. So when I was asked to not only be in this series, but to kick it off, I was unbelievably honoured. It's such a huge compliment. When Grace explained the concept to me, she told me that it was all about the designing a life for your future self. And that felt like a perfect fit for me because all of my work is centred around helping people consciously create a life that feels fulfilling to them. And it's about becoming the best versions of them that they can be. Learning how to master the practice of manifestation through my unique seven-step method has transformed my own life in literally every way imaginable. It's helped me become the most peaceful and fulfilled, and content version of myself. And I'm so passionate about sharing it because I know that it can absolutely do the same for you. So I'm thrilled to be sharing as much of that knowledge as I can over the next 25 minutes as your first teacher for this very exciting new series. And if you want to learn more and go deeper after today, you can explore my Manifest books. They are designed to make manifestation simple, accessible, and genuinely applicable to your And they're also available on audiobooks read by me. we're going to start with module one which is all about outlining your future self plan. Now when I'm coaching so many of my clients come to me and they say that they're really unhappy with their current situation and they know they want something to change in their life but they have no idea where to begin and I'm sure there are many of you listening to this or watching this now who feel exactly the same. You want change but you don't know in what way and often what that's coming from is this not knowing what you want your ideal future life to look like and so if this is you then I want you to rest assured that by the end of this episode you're going to come away with a much deeper understanding of what a fulfilled life looks like to you. I also want you to feel really excited and really ready to adopt a mindset shift that's going to help you basically reverse engineer the life you want to create. This episode is going to lay the foundation for everything that follows because all meaningful change is going to come from you. So I want you to feel really excited begins with the way that we think. Our minds really are one of the most powerful tools that we have. So grab your notebook, your planner or your notes app, whatever you need to follow along and I want you to write things down because there are going to be exercises that you'll definitely want to return to. Let's start with what reverse engineering actually means. So many people move through life just sort of coasting along and hoping for the best. Perhaps they set a few vague new year's resolutions that are never really properly committed. But if you've watched my previous episodes with Grace, you might remember something that I've said before, which is that human beings are built to work towards something. We want to have that forward momentum and I'm a really strong believer that having meaningful goals gives us a sense of direction, purpose and I'll come back to that word again, fulfillment. Now for those of you who already set goals, and I'm sure that is a lot of you listening because I know that Grace talks about it a lot and rightly so, we tend to plan our lives by looking for the best. So I want you to look forward. So we look at where we are today and then ask ourselves, what do we want next? And that might be the next job title, it might be a new home, a creative goal, or even the next romantic relationship milestone. And that is obviously a really great starting point. Where do I want to go next? But reverse engineering takes it a step further. So instead of beginning with where you are today and working forwards, you actually begin with your future self and work backwards. You get crystal clear on the person you want to become and the life you want to be living in five years or ten years from now. And then you trace the path all the way back to today. And at that point, you ask yourself, what would that version of me have needed to do this year, this month, and this week? Now I know some of you might be thinking, isn't this basically just manifesting with a fancier title? And I suppose yes, because manifesting begins with you. And I think that's getting clear on your vision. And actually, something I should mention now is that when I talk about manifestation, I think it's really easy for people to think that it's all about manifesting things into your life. But actually, the most important question of manifestation is not what can I have, but who can I become? So getting really aligned with the person you want to become is so important. Once you do that, you can then align your mindset and your actions with that vision. So reverse engineering essentially gives you this really practical route for doing that. It allows you to see the bigger picture and then identify what steps you'll take to get there. Now, Grace would never let me onto the series without receipts. So let's quickly talk about why this works on a scientific level, because there is some really fascinating research behind it. The first concept I want to introduce you to is called the future self-continuity. Psychologist Hal Hirschfeld at UCLA has spent years studying the way that we relate to our future self. And his findings actually changed the whole way that I think about manifestation. In one area of his research, brain imaging suggested that when some people thought about their future selves, the patterns of activity resembled the way their brains responded when thinking about another person. So what this means is that your future self can feel so distant that your brain almost treats them as if they were a part of your future self. And so when you think about that, why would you save money or train for a marathon or complete the boring groundwork required to build a business for someone you barely feel connected to? We can deprioritize our future selves because we haven't yet built a meaningful relationship with them. But don't panic. That doesn't mean that your future self isn't important. In fact, his research also found that when people are helped to feel more connected to their future selves, their present day decisions can be more meaningful and change. Now, in one study, participants were shown digitally aged images of themselves, and this increased their willingness to allocate more money towards their future. I think that is actually an incredible finding. So the more real and detailed your future self becomes in your mind, the easier it becomes for your present self to act in their interests. And that is why the work we're going to do today is so important, because you're essentially beginning to close your eyes to the future self. And that's why we're going to do today is so important, because you're essentially beginning to close the gap between who you are now and the version of yourself that you're building towards so that your future self doesn't feel vague, abstract or disconnected from the choices that you are making today. Now, there's a second piece of research I love, which looks at the direction in which we plan. A 2017 study comparing forward and backward planning found that backward planning, reverse engineering, could increase motivation, reduce feelings of time pressure and improve performance, particularly when people were working towards more complex goals. And the detail that I find most fascinating about this is that the bigger and more complicated the dream, the more helpful it can be to plan it in reverse. So working backwards helps you see what is required at each stage. It turns one really enormous, intimidating ambition into a series of much clearer steps, so that your dreams begin to feel less like fantasy and more like something you could actively build. Okay, so now you know why reverse engineering works, let's actually do it. Step one is all about meeting your future self. Okay, what I want you to do is choose a point in the future that you would like to work towards throughout this series. So some people like to choose a five-year or a 10-year horizon. It's up to you whatever feels best, and one is not better than the other. But for others, it might even feel more useful to choose a specific life chapter, such as if you've got a major birthday or a career transition, the launch of a business or whatever other meaningful milestone that you have. There's no perfect time frame, you just want to choose one that feels far enough away to allow you to think expansively, but close enough that you can still imagine yourself there. For me personally, I really love a one-year timeline, and that's why I base most of my own vision boards on or future self-planning. So I want you to close your eyes if you can, and if it's safe to do so. And I want you to close your eyes if you can, and if it's I want you to take yourself forward to the point in time you have chosen. Begin by thinking about the most confident, fulfilled, and happy version of yourself that there can be. You might even imagine yourself walking through a full day in your future life. Think for a second about where you wake up. How do you feel? You might imagine yourself waking up full of vitality, energy, excitement, motivation. What does your morning look like as the future self-planning? And if so, what do you think about the future you? What are you working on? Who are you surrounded by? How do you carry yourself into a room? What habits have you created and committed to? What boundaries do you maintain? What do you make time for? How do you speak to yourself? How does it feel to be you? Now those are a lot of questions that I've just asked you to think of there, and you don't have to think of them all at once, but try to paint this full picture of your future self as part of a small visualization. One important note here is that if you don't know yet what you want your future life to look like, just begin with how you want your future self to feel. I said just now that you could imagine yourself waking up with vitality and excitement. You could always also just think about how you want to feel in your relationships, how you want to feel when you're at work. You know, for me, when I'm at work, I want to feel challenged in the right way. You might not know exactly where you want to live, or what job you want to have, or what kind of job you want to have, or what kind of what you want your life to look like, but perhaps you do know that you want to feel peaceful. You want to feel free. You want to feel like there's adventure in your life. You want to feel connected to your community. You want to feel like you have purpose, that you have financial security or freedom. So start with the feeling, and then let the details grow from there. Now when you're thinking about these questions, of which, as I said, there are quite a few, so I will include them in the show notes, just so you can come back to them. Either you're thinking about either just to deepen your visualization, or you might even want to do it as an extra journaling exercise for yourself afterwards. But when you are thinking about them, I want you to be as specific as you can. Specific to the point where it almost feels indulgent. This is what I really want you to take from this, is that I want you to give yourself permission to imagine beyond what currently feels realistic or familiar. Because something that I, that almost saddens me, I would say, is that when people come to me and they say, you know, I want to start manifesting journey. What I recognize is that they don't even allow themselves to dream about or think about what they want because they're currently being limited by their own insecurities, doubts or fears. So what I really want you to do is set all of those worries aside and I want you to just allow yourself to at least imagine what you desire. This is not the moment to edit your desires according to what you already think you know that you can achieve. This is about really opening your mind to all the unlocked potential that you have. Now some people really like making vision boards at this stage but as you know from my previous episode with Grace, if you've listened to it, I'm also a really big fan of just bullet points. Beautiful images can be really great for inspiration and making things look pretty and having it as your phone screensaver but I think this process is just as powerful with a pen and paper. What's important really is that you're not just going to be able to imagine what you want to be isn't how it looks, it's just that you are as specific as you can be about the goals that you want to reach and how you want to feel as your future self. Okay, step two is give yourself a self-worth pep talk. Once you've answered all the questions, I want you to acknowledge something really important. It becomes much harder to create and sustain the life you want if underneath it all you do not believe you are worthy of receiving it. If you're already familiar with my seven step manifestation method, you will know that removing fear and doubt is a very important part of your life and learning to trust are essential parts of the practice. So many people don't believe that they truly deserve the goals that they're working towards, even some of the most ambitious people that I know. What I want you to remember is that most children begin life with an instinctive sense of possibility. We are born into this world full of confidence and self-worth but somewhere along the way, many of us absorb beliefs about who we are, who we're supposed to be and how we're supposed to be, how ambitious we're allowed to become, how visible we should be, how much happiness and success is acceptable to one and those beliefs can come from our families, from experiences, culture, people around us, all just the disappointments that we've lived through and over time they can begin to feel like facts and so we have unconsciously learned them but we have to consciously unlearn them because the beliefs that you hold about yourself influence everything. They influence the opportunities you pursue, the risks you take, the boundaries you set, the way you respond to setbacks and what you allow yourself to receive and so if you only actually took away one thing from this episode then I think it should be this. Give yourself permission again and again to know that you are deserving of the life you are designing. Whatever it is you want, you deserve to have it. You absolutely do. So I want you to choose an affirmation that speaks directly to the future you've just imagined. So it could be something like I am worthy of the job that I desire. I am worthy of living in the home that I want to manifest. I'm capable of becoming the person I want to be. It is safe for me to grow, change and receive more. Or maybe it's simply I give myself permission to want this thing. You can write down your affirmation and then repeat it to yourself every morning. What you're doing when you do this practice is beginning to replace an old familiar belief with one that actually supports the person you're becoming. Now if you want to turn practices like this into part of your daily routine you can use the manifest app which I have just created. I'm so excited about it. It's got daily affirmations, guided visualization meditations. It's got like over 20 meditations on there. It's got a gratitude practice, journaling, habit tracking. So you can keep building this relationship with your future self long after today's episode. Now let's move on to step three which is about reversing the timeline. So now we come to the actual engineering part. I want you to write a letter from your future self to your current self using the point in time that you chose earlier. Now this is slightly different from the classic exercise of writing a letter to your future self because instead we're flipping it. You're going to imagine that you've already arrived at that point and you're looking back at the journey that brought you here. So write the letter as though this future life is now your reality. And there are three things that I want you to include. The first is what are you celebrating? What's happened? What have you created? What have you completed? What's changed in your life or what have you experienced? And I want you again just to be really specific. We really want to prime the subconscious parts of our brain to reach our goals and the way that we do that is by regularly visually rehearsing what we want. So we're going to write a letter to our future self. I want you to write a letter to our future self. Whenever we have an opportunity to write it down, do a visualization meditation, always be as specific as you can. The second thing I want you to include is what are you grateful that your current self started? So which decision or conversation or habit or boundary of risk or small action created the first shift? So you might say I am living in my dream home. It's got this many bedrooms and this is the layout of the kitchen and this is the area that's in. You're really specific about it. And I'm so grateful to me five years ago that decided to go for this new role so that I could finally start my journey to financial freedom. Or I'm so glad that I took the actions that I needed to be able to get a mortgage ready. Whatever it is, I want you to feel complete gratitude for your past self for doing these things. The third thing I want you to include is how do you feel now, like in the future? How does it feel to live as this version of yourself? Again, we come back to asking that question. How do you feel when you wake up? How do you feel in your relationships? How do you feel at work? How do you feel in your own mind? What has changed internally as well as externally? So you might write something like I'm so confident in who I am now. My inner voice doesn't have power over me anymore. I have healthy, strong, supportive relationships that make me feel loved and seen and respected. All of these details are so important. Now, once you finish the letter, read it back to yourself slowly and then look for clues. You know, what did your future self thank you for beginning? What choices did they make consistently that got you to where they are? What did they stop tolerating? What did they have to believe about themselves? And then I want you to think, what is one action you can take this week that moves you closer to that version of you? You don't need to know every step today. You just need enough clarity to identify the next one. And as you do that, return to affirmation from step two. Remind yourself that the future you have described is not reserved for somebody more talented, more confident, more deserving, more prepared than you. Your letter does not need to become your reality through positive thinking alone, but it becomes possible when you allow yourself to believe in it, when you make choices in alignment with it, and when you continue showing up for it one step at a time. Okay, so that is episode one complete. And I want to thank you so much for having me as your first teacher, Grace. I've honestly loved every second. And I hope you're leaving this episode with a clearer picture of the person you're becoming, a stronger belief in what is possible for you, and one tangible action that you can begin today. Your future self is not a stranger waiting somewhere in the distance. They are being shaped by every choice that you make now. So keep your letter somewhere in the future. So keep your letter somewhere safe. Return to it throughout the series. And remember, you don't need to transform your whole life overnight. You simply need to begin showing up for the version of you who already knows where you're going. Now, before I hand you back to Grace, if you want to go deeper into anything I've spoken about, I've sent my recommendations and an exercise over to Grace for the Working Hard newsletter this week, which is linked in the description of this episode. Thank you so much for listening, and I'll hand you over to Grace.
Speaker 1Right, I am back again. And I just wanted to say thank you so much to Roxy for her wisdom. And a huge thank you to you for listening to the first episode of the Future Self series. I really hope you loved it. As I said, we've thought this through as almost a course. So there are going to be so many amazing resources. There's lots going on over on the Instagram. There's lots that's going to be happening every single week in order to make this as useful as possible for you. If you did enjoy this episode, the rest of the series is going to be right up your street. And next week, we're going to be tackling how to stop your 20s, sabotaging your 30s and 40s. So just a little bit more information on that. Just a little light one. But I think particularly important because I think we spend so much time talking about our 20s and talking about what we should be doing in our 20s. Realistically, life is long. When we're talking about building the life we want, we're talking about setting ourselves up for the future. So we have to talk about this. So I will see you there then. And in the meantime, have a wonderful week.
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