Daily Inspiration: “Reminder. Tomorrow is tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow is tomorrow. You promised yourself yesterday that you were going to do something today so that today wouldn’t be like the tomorrow that you had yesterday. Maybe it’s time you finally do it.” – Futurist Jim Carroll

Take a moment to unwrap that. I’ll wait.

It’s “Motivational Monday!” – the day we are supposed to remind ourselves to get a great start to the week.

And so my mind usually rolls around to mindset moments like this. Here’s the first, shorter version, which is a bit more action-oriented.

“Tomorrow is tomorrow. What are you going to do today so that it won’t be like the tomorrow that you had yesterday?” 

Because, in the back of your mind, your yesterday might not have been too great because you didn’t do the things the day before that you could have done to make it a better day today. If that makes any sense.

Both of the quotes take a bit of time to unwrap, which was the intention – sometimes we need to spend a moment to remind ourselves of our need for motivation. And both involve the benefit of action and challenge us on the sin of inaction – procrastination. Inertia is easy – action is hard.

I think a lot about things like this. As a futurist, my job is to take people through time, and yet I know that many in my audience would prefer not to come along for the ride. They’re too complacent about the change that they face; they are in denial about their circumstances; they don’t believe they need to worry. And so they do the thing that comes naturally – they delay. If often does not work out well.

But what drives this desire to try to avoid the inevitable? Many people feel trapped in their current reality and don’t know how to escape. This sets in a feeling of feeling helplessness, and a state of being inactive, unable to move forward. And yet while this settles in, the future happens all around them, often at an ever-increasing pace. The result? They fall behind, fail, and end up in a worse state than before.

Sometimes they try to motivate themselves to get out of this state and yet fail. And so they set themselves up with little moments in time – “Motivational Mondays‘” – to try to get a reset and get going once again. And so with that in mind, tomorrow is tomorrow. It’s inevitable. What you do right now matters!

Welcome to Monday!