‘Brave New You’ Confidence Challenge Day #2- The Confident Future You

Photo Credit: Chloe Brotheridge

For yesterday’s challenge, I had to listen to Chloe’s ‘Confident Future You’ meditation clip, during which you are made to conjure an image of yourself at some point in the future and imagine that in this version of yourself, you are calm, confident and self-assured.

As Chloe says in her email: “There’s something incredibly inspiring about creating a strong image of ourselves, as we’d like to be. Many people that I speak to don’t know what they want, or how they’d like to be. How can you get somewhere if you don’t even know where that is? Being clear on how we’d like to feel, think and behave as our most confident selves makes it easier to get there. Doing this meditation creates a new blueprint in your subconscious mind, planting a seed of what’s possible for you and helping you to create it in your life for real.”

At first, I really struggled to get into this meditation- I felt really distracted and I think due to my current headspace with the thoughts I’ve been having recently, I found it really difficult to imagine myself as being a calm and confident person at any point in my future.

However, once I was able to truly let go and immerse myself into the guided meditation, I was picturing myself in all sorts of different scenarios and looking like a happier, lighter, brighter, more confident version of myself; it really was a powerful exercise!

‘What were the details that you noticed about your confident future self?’

I was smiling and laughing a lot more. I looked more relaxed, laidback and genuinely happy. It seemed like I was even standing taller and more comfortable in my own skin. I was able to better make my own decisions and seemed more confident in the choices I was making, not needing to ask others for their reassurance on what I was doing. I was a lot more self-assured in my current job role, as well as my future career plans.

‘What does your future self do, think, feel, say and experience?’

I imagined myself in lots of different scenarios and in different stages of my future.

I was still in my current role as a 1-1 LSA in a primary school, but I had finally decided on career path and was back at university part time retraining as well. Although I’m not quite sure what field that will be in yet, I had a clear path and plan for my future and was really happy and felt confident with the choice I had made.

My boyfriend will be happy with this one, as I could picture myself relaxed on a beach with him, finally able to kick my travel anxiety and venture abroad for a holiday together.

I was engaging in my hobbies more and doing more of the things I actually enjoy doing and that make me happy, rather than always doing things I or others think I should be doing. I was more assertive along with this, finally being able to say no to all the things that don’t nourish me and zap my energy. I was able to drop the guilty feeling that often comes with doing this and had learnt to be kinder on myself in the process.

Overall, I was feeling less anxious and worried about my future and was able to control my anxiety better to enjoy the present moments as well. I wasn’t overanalysing and overthinking every single little thing that I said or did and seemed more content, relaxed and happy in myself and in everything I was choosing to do.

‘What did it feel like to imagine this?’

I had this really warm feeling while I was imagining this future version of myself and brought me some peace, knowing that this could actually be me at some point. It was also quite exciting to imagine that these images could potentially be the more confident, future me!

However, after the meditation had finished and o started the workbook to reflect on the exercise, I started to feel a little deflated, as in my current headspace and my mental illness in its current state, this image of a brighter, calmer future me felt like a really distant version of myself and I can’t quite see yet how I am going to reach that point in my life at this moment.

I do feel quite hopeful though, after completing this activity. It is quite nice to feel that this image of a calm, confident and self-assured Sophie is out there somewhere, she’s not a completely unattainable version of myself; if I can imagine her, I can become her. So long as I continue to put the effort in and work hard to improve on myself and on my recovery journey, she can become my future reality…and that is pretty exciting and something to hold on for.

What do you imagine your future self to be? What do they do, think, feel, say and experience? How does it make you feel to imagine that future you? As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!