How are you shaping your future?

May 21, 2025
5:57 PM

How certain are you about your future? How confident are you in your decisions? How strongly do you believe in yourself to achieve your ambitions?

When I first got into the self-help industry, I was told that my circumstances were the combined result of all the decisions I had made in my past. Naturally, if I wanted to change my future, I had to begin by changing my decisions. I got to work. For years, I paid close attention to the decisions I did and didn't make, and how they influenced my life.

However, I didn't get any clearer about my future. Decision-making was too vague an idea to result in any specific changes in my life. I read countless books. I practiced being more present in my daily life. I worked on my attitude. I refined my critical thinking and writing skills. At the end of it all, I felt like I was a better person, but had little to show for it other than my subjective opinion.

I began to question, "If I were on the right track to becoming a better person, where was my progress? Where was the evidence that I was growing, and I wasn't just being delusional?" It seemed I was in the same place I was before, but now I was older and even further behind than when I first started. How was I meant to progress in my life?

With some of my prime years seemingly wasted and my dad questioning what I was making of my life, I began to reflect with hopes that I could clarify my path forward; to have something concrete I could show my dad to prove I wasn't a complete failure. I looked at the future from different perspectives, trying to understand its role in my life and what a healthy relationship with my future looked like.

After a few days, I realized my relationship with my future wasn't determined by decisions, but by offers; the invitations that created the opportunities to make new decisions. Whether it was made available to me or by me, it became clear that offers were what planted the seeds of possibility that would later grow into a new future.

Whether it was being recommended a new book, asking others to have difficult conversations, or buying something new, focusing on the offers in my life allowed me to have a measurable way to direct my influence and take responsibility for the future I was creating.

If you feel anxious about your future today and feel that it's out of your control, don't just focus on the decisions you're making, but on the offers that lead to making those decisions. If there aren't any offers for you to review, perhaps it's time you began to make some, even if they are only made for yourself.

Take some time to consider: What offers do you most frequently make to yourself and the people around you? How are your offers shaping your future? How can you better align your offers toward the future you want to create? How can you improve your offers to be more appealing and easier to accept?

If all you do in the next week is focus on the offers you make and receive in your life, I promise you that by the end of the week, you'll discover a new perspective of your future that you not only feel in control of but one that gives you the clarity to take decisive actions in your life.

8:26 PM
Chris X