Remember Tomorrow

How are you going to feel tomorrow about what you did today?

“Remember tomorrow” is a mantra. It’s a check-in with yourself before making decisions. It’s a way to avoid going through life on autopilot, wondering what happened to your goals.

The idea comes from Jesse Itzler, an entrepreneur and partial owner of the Atlanta Hawks.

“When you have a split-second decision you have to make…remember how that decision is going to make you feel tomorrow….You want to be the life of the party, that’s amazing at the party, until tomorrow….When you have a key decision or you’re at a critical juncture…how are you going to feel when you make this decision, tomorrow?”

It’s easy to justify a decision in our heads then act on it without thinking it through.

Anyone who’s tried to eat healthier has felt this. We’re offered something unhealthy that we’re trying not to eat. We rationalize eating it in our heads and twenty minutes later we regret it.

Remembering tomorrow keeps us from undercutting our future selves.

In Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life he says:

“It’s not the existence of vice, or the indulgence in it, that requires explanation. Vice is easy. Failure is easy, too. It’s easier not to shoulder a burden. It’s easier not to think, and not to do, and not to care. It’s easier to put off until tomorrow what needs to be done today, and drown the upcoming months and years in today’s cheap pleasures.”

He continues:

“The successful among us delay gratification. The successful among us bargain with the future.”

The Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman had a saying, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Remembering tomorrow keeps us from fooling ourselves. It’s a chance to stop and think about the decision we’re about to make. Is this short burst of pleasure worth the trade-off?

How am I going to feel about this decision tomorrow? Is this in line with what I set out to accomplish today? Tomorrow when I wake up, will this decision have moved me closer or further from where I want to be?