Making Decisions From Your Future Self

Ever find yourself standing at a crossroads, wondering whether you're making the right decision? Second-guessing yourself. Going backwards and forwards in your own mind. Worrying about making another mistake.

I think we've all been there. I certainly have.

In fact, I genuinely don't believe I'd be living the life I am today if I hadn't started asking for advice from someone who has become central to almost every important decision I've made over the last decade. My future self.

For years, life felt incredibly heavy.

If you know me now, that might surprise you. But after losing my mum and leaving my marriage in the same year, life suddenly looked completely different. Overnight I found myself working full time, raising my daughter on my own, paying a mortgage, trying to keep a business running, writing books, and somehow holding everything together while quietly pretending I was coping.

Eventually, I ended up on anti-anxiety medication.

Not because I was broken, or unresilient.

Simply because I was carrying more than one person should reasonably be expected to carry.

Looking back now, I don't think what I needed was 'fixing'.

I think what I needed was perspective.

Somewhere during those years I became fascinated by psychology, coaching and human behaviour. I read constantly. I attended coaching programmes. I asked better questions. Slowly, something started changing.

Instead of focusing on the person I was, I became curious about the woman I wanted to become.

That's where Future came from Kate

Whenever I had a difficult decision to make, I'd pause and ask myself a simple question. What would Future Kate do?

Not exhausted Kate. Not scared Kate. Not overwhelmed Kate.

The version of me who had already built the life I wanted.

At first it felt a little silly. But over time something remarkable happened. The decisions started changing. And because the decisions changed... so did I.

I realised that most of us make decisions from where we're standing today. We make them based on our fears, our disappointments, our current circumstances and everything that's happened to us up until this point. Without even realising it, we're asking the wrong version of ourselves for advice.

The version of you standing here today only knows everything you've already experienced. Your future self knows where you're trying to go.

That one shift completely changed how I approached life.

Instead of asking, "What's the safest option?" I started asking, "What would Future Kate choose?"

Instead of wondering whether I was capable, I started asking whether Future Kate would regret not giving it a go.

Instead of focusing on what I might lose, I started thinking about the person I was becoming.

It didn't suddenly make life easy. It didn't magically remove uncertainty. But it gave me direction. And sometimes that's all we really need.

A relationship with myself

When I look back now, I realise I wasn't really talking to my future self at all. I was building a relationship with myself. I was creating space to step outside the emotion of the present long enough to make decisions from a place of perspective rather than fear.

Back then, I didn't have a name for what I was doing. Now I do.

I describe that as Personal Intelligence.

Personal Intelligence is the capacity to recognise yourself more clearly over time. It's about becoming more aware of your own patterns, thinking, behaviours and growth — not so you can become someone else, but so you can make decisions that are more aligned with the life you're trying to create.

That's one of the reasons I built Midlife Renaissance.

I wanted to create something that helped people have these conversations with themselves every day. Not through motivation or positive thinking, but through reflection. Because reflection has a remarkable way of showing us things we can't see while we're living them.

When you begin noticing your own patterns, your decisions start to change. When your decisions change, your life begins changing with them.

Hundreds of decisions tiny

I smile at that younger version of myself. She had absolutely no idea what was coming. She didn't know she'd one day build a technology company. She didn't know she'd spend years researching what would eventually become Personal Intelligence. She didn't know she'd eventually build Midlife Renaissance.

She wasn't trying to build any of that. She was simply trying to make the next good decision.

Looking back, I think that's the bit we often miss. Our lives rarely change because of one enormous decision. They change because of hundreds of tiny ones.

One conversation. One opportunity. One boundary. One uncomfortable decision. One brave step.

Individually they don't seem particularly significant. Together, they quietly change the direction of your life.

That's why I still ask myself the same question today. What would Future Kate do? Not because she has all the answers. Because she reminds me not to make decisions based solely on who I am today. She reminds me to make decisions for the person I'm still becoming.

The questions I ask today aren't very different from the ones I asked ten years ago. They're simply more intentional.

Who am I becoming? What's changing? What keeps showing up? What would the future version of me thank me for doing today?

Those are the kinds of questions that eventually became the foundation for Midlife Renaissance. Not because I wanted to build an app. Because I wanted to make reflection easier.

Life moves quickly. We forget what we've learned. We lose sight of how far we've come. Sometimes we simply need somewhere quiet enough to recognise ourselves again.

Your future self isn't waiting somewhere in the distance. She's being shaped by the choices you make today. One reflection. One conversation. One decision at a time.