It’s only February, and, if you are like most people, you have given up on your New Year’s resolutions. For most of us, this is a perennial problem. About 30 days into the year, there are no more keto meals or yoga classes. The canonized works of great literature have already started to gather dust.

Why do we do this?

It turns out that there is science to it. Our brains are actually optimized to prefer our present-day selves over ourselves in the future. When we work to visualize our future selves, our brains, according to fMRI scanning, actually behave as though we are visualizing a stranger. More pointedly, a stranger we do not trust.

And this has consequences.

It is why we will take short-term gains over long-term implications. It is why we will optimize for immediate payoffs over more audacious achievement that require time to develop.

It turns out that there is something that can be done about this. We can build empathy and get to know our future selves. You can employ proven strategies that will allow you to increase your foresight intelligence and offer you a mindset that can remain more focused on your long-term vision.

If you are finding that you are stuck with certain personal, career or business goals or if you would like to uncover what more could be possible, Bigwidesky is offering a brief workshop on March 4 from 8:30 AM to 10 AM at our offices (2 North Meramec, St. Louis, MO 63105).