59. Leading with Your Future Self

As we look towards the end of 2023 and the start of a new year, you’re probably thinking about what you want to create or achieve in the coming months. There’s often a lot of rigidity and a sense of tunnel vision that we can get sucked into as we plan our goals, and we forget to zoom out and look at the broader picture. This is why it’s the perfect time to talk about your future self.

Self-leadership as a business owner is something I discuss often with my clients, and it’s a key step in the Out of Overwhelm process. Whether it’s your level of confidence, how you plan, or make decisions, leading with your future self has a well of wisdom, guidance, and reassurance to offer, but you first have to learn how to tune into her.

Listen in this week to hear why leading with your future self is an important tool that can help you make decisions, set goals, and align yourself with the business you want to build. I’m showing you what happens when you begin tuning into your future self, powerful questions to ask her, and my top suggestions for where you can begin using this concept right now.


Enrollment for Out of Overwhelm is closing TODAY and we’re kicking off the group in January 2024. Click here to claim one of the very limited spots in the program! Or if you’re unsure if it’s a good fit, click here to schedule a consult call with me.


What You’ll Discover from this Episode:

  • What the concept of your future self means.

  • Why leading with your future self is a vital part of the Out of Overwhelm process.

  • How your future self is the solution to tunnel vision and catastrophizing.

  • What happens when you access your future self in your decision-making process.

  • Powerful questions to ask yourself in leading with your future self.

  • My top suggestions for where you can begin leading with your future self.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:


Full Episode Transcript:

Hey designer, you’re listening to episode 59. In this one I’m sharing about a really important step in the Out Of Overwhelm process, and it’s called leading with your future self. This is an important tool you’ll use to make decisions, set goals and align yourself with the business you want to build. I can’t wait to share it with you.

Welcome to The Interior Design Business CEO, the only show for designers who are ready to confidently run and grow their businesses without the stress and anxiety. If you’re ready to develop a bigger vision for your interior design business, free up your time, and streamline your days for productivity and profit, you’re in the right place. I’m Desi Creswell, an award-winning interior designer and certified life and business coach. I help interior designers just like you stop feeling overwhelmed so they can build profitable businesses they love to run. Are you ready to confidently lead your business, clients, and projects? Let’s go.

Hello, designer. Welcome back to the podcast. How are you this week? I had such a delightful surprise the other day. I subscribe to our local magazine, Minneapolis St. Paul Home and Design, which is, I think, really a top-notch design magazine. Kelly, the editor, does an incredible job in who she highlights, the editorial feel of the magazine, the photography, everything in there is always really amazing.

And each year they send out a Minneapolis St. Paul Home and Design top 100. And I had completely forgotten that they had reached out to me a while back asking about my podcast. And as I was flipping through the magazine, I thought wait a second, I’m in here. How exciting is that? So The Interior Design Business CEO podcast is one of the top 100 that they highlighted for the year in home and design for our area. So that just feels so special.

I’m in great company, my friend Mark Williams, who’s a high-end luxury home builder and also the host of The Curious Builder Podcast was also in the magazine, so that was really fun. I’ll make sure to put the link in the show notes. I was on Mark’s podcast just a while ago, so I’ll share that interview in the show notes. And then also, we have a really awesome episode planned for you to come out in the beginning of 2024, that you’re not going to want to miss about working with high-end home builders.

But anyways, it was just so great. Such a nice surprise. And it felt like a real moment for me. I’ve been in Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine before with design work, but this felt like the arrival of a new era, with it being the podcast, it being my coaching business that was being highlighted. And so thank you, Minneapolis St. Paul Magazine, it really is an honor to be on your pages along with all of the other incredible entrepreneurs, business owners, trends and movements that are happening in our area.

The topic I want to talk to you about today is leading with your future self. This is something that I talk with clients and coach them on so frequently, is this idea of self-leadership and managing yourself as the business owner. And that comes out in so many different arenas, whether that’s in confidence, how you plan, the way you make decisions. And leading with your future self is one of the five steps of the Out Of Overwhelm process.

And as a reminder, enrollment for Out Of Overwhelm January 2024 is closing today if you’re listening to this live as it’s released, so December 6th. And I want you to be aware that I probably won’t be opening up enrollment again until late 2024. So if you’ve been eyeing the program, if you’ve been wanting to work with me in this way, now is the time to decide to submit your application.

Out Of Overwhelm, really, I’ve never seen any program like it. I am so proud of what I have created for you. It’s an incredibly high-touch, intimate group coaching program where I’ve accounted for all of the things that keep you stuck being stressed and stretched then, so you can transition with our work together to being in control of your time, profits and projects. And most importantly, in control of your future, your future business and your future self that we are going to be talking about today.

Out Of Overwhelm kicks off with our virtual retreat on January 16th and we are going to work intimately together to set your goals for the four months that we will work together. To join us, simply click the link in the show notes. You’re going to fill out a quick form and I’ve also opened up space on my calendar in the next few days if you want to talk to me before making a decision. All you have to do is note that on your form and I’ll reach out to get a call scheduled.

If you’ve been loving the podcast, you are going to love Out Of Overwhelm, and the doors are closing. So get your application in so that we can do this work together.

All right, let’s dive into the topic of leading with your future self. So, first of all, what is future self? Future self is all about focusing on where you’re going versus where you’ve been. Your future self is the version of you that has created the vision you hold for yourself and your business. This version of you may feel a certain way throughout their day, like relaxed or confident. They may spend their days doing a specific type of work or working with a specific type of client. They’ve achieved certain goals, maybe it’s an income goal or a piece of press that you’ve secured, whatever it is for you.

When you’re leading with your future self, you’re setting intentions, making decisions and taking action in alignment with this future version of you that you’re moving towards with purpose. Now, with that being said, there is one really important piece I want to mention here. Your future self is not perfect. They still have bad days. They still encounter obstacles. And they don’t always honor their commitments to themselves, but they are farther along in their journey than present you when you picture them.

When you’re accessing your future self, when you’re leading with your future self and making decisions through that filter, what you’re really doing is tapping into what’s already in your brain. Thoughts you already have, but you just haven’t taken time to listen for. Beliefs that maybe you could adopt, or perspective or thoughts on how your actions might need to shift in order to create the results you want. Your future self is just a well of wisdom, but we have to learn to tune into it and make decisions in alignment with that future self.

I thought this would be a great time to talk about future self, heading into the end of the year and starting to think about what you want to create or achieve in 2024. I think often there’s a lot of rigidity and perspective around short and long term circumstances and outcomes in relation to goals and planning. Meaning we get really stuck in the day to day and the micro, and we forget to zoom out. We forget to look at that broader perspective. And that’s one of the things that leading with your future solve can offer.

This can look like wanting to avoid or put off doing the difficult thing you know would serve you because there’s just so many distractions and quick fixes and quick hits of dopamine at our fingertips. Or in the short term, maybe you’re prone to avoiding action taking that stretches you out of your comfort zone because often there isn’t an immediate payoff. And so you don’t get the reward of taking the action for a while.

Or sometimes how in the short term, a challenge or a disappointment can feel like the end of the world when in reality, it’s a little blip if you have the perspective to look out farther than today and recover from whatever you encountered and bounce back. The solution to our brain’s natural tendency to get tunnel vision, and sometimes even catastrophize the immediate moment really is leading with your future self.

One of the questions you can always be asking yourself is am I leading myself in the direction I want to go? Another one would be, am I taking action in support of the version of me that I want to become? Am I staying focused and committed to my goals to set myself up for success in creating that future that I want? These are all really powerful questions to start asking yourself.

And that’s why part of the Out Of Overwhelm process is to learn to lead with your future self. And there’s so many tools to support this shift, not just in your mindset, but in your action taking within your business, like creating your CEO vision. Or making empowered decisions. Or using the daily planner to create plans that are in alignment with what your future self would want for you. Or the bonus courses on goal setting and self-accountability.

There are so many tools that support you in leading with your future self. And, of course, I’d love to support you in the program, if that feels like a fit. But I want to give you some things today to start thinking about and really start to see the impact of starting to look to your future for guidance and wisdom about the now, because so much of leading from your future self is centered on decision making, something we do day in day out.

One of the areas that shows up in is planning. The idea of a runway, scheduling some time before and after your time off to give yourself a little bit of cushion and breathing room, is actually something that I came up with when I was asking my future self about how I’d want to set myself up for returning from being out of the office. My future self, I knew, was not going to be happy if I had something scheduled at 9am that I had to be ready and at my computer and on Zoom for. For some of you that might not be the case. Your runway might look different. But we don’t know that until we ask.

Another way planning decisions come up with future self is that you can consider, is the schedule I’m planning for myself today one I’m going to be happy with at the end of the day, or am I setting myself up to be totally overextended?

Or looking ahead and asking yourself, am I going to be happy that I booked two presentations in one day? Just because it fits on the calendar, maybe I don’t want to do that. Again, for some of you, that might be totally doable and within your capacity. And for others of you, that might feel completely draining and you’re going to regret having filled those spaces the way that you did. But you wouldn’t know that in the moment when it looks like the jigsaw fits on the computer screen of your calendar, without looking out to your future self and leading from that future position.

Decision making with your future self also is really evident with clients. In Out Of Overwhelm we talk about lots of strategies for setting client filters. Meaning how do you attract and also help people self-select or filter them out before they even talk to you when it comes to serving your ideal clients, which saves you, of course, time and energy. And you could also use your future self as a client filter. Let me give you an example of this.

It might sound fun and exciting to take on a new project right now. And you also want to check in, what does your future self think about your project deadlines a few months out? Will you be glad you chose the excitement in the moment?

Another example of this could be you have a feeling after meeting with a client that maybe it’s not the best fit, but you’re tempted to say yes anyways because, let’s face it, sometimes we’re uncomfortable about saying no. Before you make a decision, check in with your future self. What would their leadership advise?

For me, it might feel hard to say no to a non ideal client right now. But when I look to the future and I lead with my future self and picture myself working with that person in an intimate relationship for the next few months, or even longer, the no becomes a lot easier.

Marketing decisions are another one you might want to think about. When you’re getting going with something new and trying to layer in new strategies and approaches, it can be hard to stay motivated if you’re not getting an immediate response or feedback cycle of, hey, this is working. Because sometimes strategies need to compound over time, I think often they do. But when you look to your future self and see compounding results of your efforts and see that if you continue on the path, you’re moving closer and closer to your goals, it can be a lot easier to keep going.

Decisions around your investments and purchases is also another great way to lead with your future self. The future you who has what you want or has achieved the goals that you’ve set, what does that version of you think about the investment you’re considering? Maybe it’s in a program or someone that you’re thinking about hiring. What does your future self think? Are you glad you made the move?

You could also use the concept of leading with your future self when it comes to what goals you pursue and how you pursue them. If you were to think of someone who’s already achieved the goal and ask them, hey, how did you do that? What were some of the things you did? Who did you ask for help? This can give you a lot of insight into your next steps and how you might achieve the goal that the you of right now doesn’t have access to when you’re just thinking about the day to day.

And lastly, leading with your future self is about receiving wise, caring support, whether it’s in decision making or any other area you’re navigating. Business can be kind of tough and so I want you to think about leading with your future self as leading yourself as would a wise mentor. This version of you has wisdom, guidance and reassurance to offer at any moment when you learn to tune in.

When you learn to lead with your future self, there is so much perspective you gain. And perspective will always help you get unstuck. It’s going to help you see solutions that you didn’t see moments before.

Things often seem like a really big deal in the moment, but when you start to see the trajectory and compounding impacts of your decisions and actions, you really can start to use that information to inform how you’re living and working today. And you can use this to build confidence in how you’re progressing and how you’re making decisions and how you’re setting goals.

This creates so much resilience when you zoom out and lead with your future self. And you’re able to see that no success in you or in your business is made or broken in one day or one interaction. Can we just release the pressure? That’s so much of what I think with future self. We can release that pressure valve, putting so much on any one thing, and get the long-term perspective from the inside.

We can release the pressure. We can create internal motivation. We can see things we could not see. And so this week, I invite you to play with this concept of leading with your future self. You can ask it for advice, get that perspective, check in on how they did something you’re trying to figure out in your business right now, and see what opens up to come through you and to you.

As we wrap up today’s episode, I really want you to consider if you are planning for and anticipating the future version of success you hold for yourself, what would you be thanking yourself for right now? If you’re on the fence about joining Out Of Overwhelm, you’ve been thinking about it and haven’t made a decision, this is a great time to check in with your future self.

I want you to picture yourself next year, having joined Out Of Overwhelm. You’re feeling confident and making progress on your goals personally and professionally. And you know you have support when the inevitable road bumps hit, because they will because that’s just life, that’s just business. What would your future self think about your decision to join? What would they have to say about it? And let that be your guide.

That is what I have for you today. I’ll be back next Wednesday with a brand new episode. And until then, I’m wishing you and your future self a beautiful week.

Have you ever wished I could be your coach? If so, keep listening. For a limited time when you leave a rating and review for the podcast you’ll be entered to win a one on one coaching session with me. I can answer your questions and coach you on your unique challenges.

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Just click the link in the show notes to submit your review so I know how to get in touch. I can’t wait to select a winner and it might be you. I’ll talk to you next week.

Thanks for joining me for this week’s episode of The Interior Design Business CEO. If you want more tips, tools and strategies visit www.desicreswell.com. And if you’re ready to take what you’ve learned on the podcast to the next level, I would love for you to check out my signature group coaching program, Out of Overwhelm.

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60. One at a Time

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58. When Your Day (Or Week) Is Derailed