Live Your Future, Now!

by: Michael Murphy

If you have followed all the talk about the law of attraction and the DVD (and book), 'The Secret', then you will realize that must shift your brain into a position of visualizing your desired outcome. The ancient wisdom said to 'believe that you have received.' In other words, start seeing your dream or goal 'as if' it has already happened.

Some people find it difficult to do this while also feeling the emotion of their desire as being accomplished. Nonetheless, this aspect is vital to allowing the manifestation of it in your life.

I want to give you a simple yet very powerful exercise that you can do that will help you vividly experience both the visualization and the emotion. Follow this exercise and practice it as often as you can. It will work in a powerful yet quite natural way for you.

Project yourself sometime into the future. Depending on how large your desired outcome is in comparison with what you truly believe can happen, you will have to set the time limit. I will let you know that the power to bring this about in your life, whether you consider it the universe or God or something else, doesn't operate on a time schedule like you and I. So whatever time you assign to this future point, doesn't really matter. As the ancient scripture says, 'According to your faith, let it be done unto you.'

As you project yourself into the future, imagine yourself looking backward in time, recounting the thing that you now desire, as having already taken place. What you are doing is projecting yourself into the future and seeing yourself give testimony of the thing you now desire. The difference is, you are looking backward in time 'as if' it has already happened.

Let me give you some examples of this.

Today is December 4, 2007. I will (in my mind's imagination chamber and eye) project myself 2 years from now. Let's say that I want to have a $1 million net worth at that time.

First, I imagine the turnaround in my thinking, looking back to today, December 4, 2007. In my imagination, it is December 4, 2009. I'm talking to a friend, doing an interview, standing up in a group that I'm a part of (perhaps even your place of worship) and recounting my turning point, two years ago.

I like to project myself as a host on Oprah. Oprah is telling the audience who I am and what significant work, event, invention, etc., that has brought me to this point of success in my life.

She says something like, “My next guest is Michael Murphy from Sherman, Texas. Michael used the power of the law of attraction to begin doing a free email service, simply empowering people through the power of encouragement. He began in February of 2006 to send out an email that directly gave amazing and powerful encouragement. Today, (December 4, 2009) he is reaching over 1,000,000 people through his 3 time weekly emails and giving them amazing encouragement and affirmations that are changing thousands of lives. He is also the author of 4 books, two of which are completely personalized books embedding the reader's name in over 100 pages of what he calls, 'Powerfirmations'. He has opened up a new field in book publishing by creating personalized books that no one has ever done previously.” Then, Oprah brings me on and begins the interview.

Now you may not see yourself going on Oprah. I do. I also see myself creating 1,000 personalized Powerfirmations books per week. I go into how my life turned around and how I'm living my dream by helping encourage and empower hundreds of thousands of people around the world.

As Mark Victor Hansen puts it, I'm creating my 'Future Diary'. You may see yourself telling a friend or doing an interview with a journalist. You may see yourself telling your children or grandchildren what you've done and accomplished. The key is, give your testimony in detail of exactly how you want it to be.

My next suggestion is to write out your story in detail and review it often.

You'll find that as you take action in doing what I'm sharing, you will feel the excitement and trigger emotions of hope, faith, confidence and clarity. You will begin to do what Dr. Covey said in his great book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. You will “begin with the end in mind”. You will find this as an amazing tool to bring about the manifestation of what you want in your life. You find yourself 'living your future, now'.

I am writing my autobiography. I'm not stopping it at today. I'm going ahead and telling my whole story. I'm telling how I want my future to be. I actually plan to self-publish it and put into a bound book.

You too can predict your own future. In fact, recognize it or not, you are the prophet of your own life. You create your reality. I heard people tell me for many years, “Michael, if you fail to plan then you are planning to fail.” Well, the problem I had was, I didn't know how to put together a plan for what I wanted to do. I didn't know 'how' to do what I wanted to do. So how could I make a roadmap to go somewhere that I'd never been before.

That's when I came up with this exercise. It is an amazing tool that anyone can do and use.

I encourage to take action in getting started on your own future. Start dreaming about where you want to be. Start writing it out. Start telling your 'future' story, now. Start planning your life and describe how you want it to be. Stop living haphazardly and start living on purpose. You and you alone will create your amazing life and live your dreams.