You might have heard of the Butterfly Effect before. Maybe you've even seen the movie. Well, it has a nice philosophical aspect to it, that you might use when you would like to impress someone. And looking at such a clever movie can certainly give you some good chill.
But do you know, that you can use the Butterfly Effect through what I call Consequential Time Travel to make sure that your decisions today are really in alignment with your values, beliefs, and goals?
What Will You Get out of It (if You Participate)?
By doing the below mentioned exercise regularly you will:
get to know the future consequences of your decisions and actions
be able to make better decisions in the here and now
get enough motivation to break through limiting habits
Background Info: What is the Butterfly Effect?
Let's take a look at the definition of the Butterfly Effect on Wikipedia.
The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. This is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position. Quantum chaos is the study of the butterfly effect in semiclassical physics and quantum mechanics.
It is a common subject in fiction when presenting scenarios involving time travel and with "what if" scenarios where one storyline diverges at the moment of a seemingly minor event resulting in two significantly different outcomes.
In essence, it states that small variations or changes now are leading to large variations or changes in the future.
Again it is crucial to understand that it is only about the small things happening now.
A small thing can be
you getting up 30 minutes earlier or later
you exercising today just 10 minutes (or not)
you going for that cheeseburger (or not)
you smiling at a person (or not)
you helping a stranger today (or not)
and so much more.
Actually everything, you can think of today is a cause set in motion that will lead to an effect.
And you can't escape from this. As I stated above whether you do something or you don't, you always produce a cause set in motion, even if you refuse to do anything. Your refusal is a cause set in motion.
How Can You Use This to Change Your Destiny?
Think of it as a series of dominos. You move the first and the rest follows automatically. You start a chain reaction just with an initial impulse. What if most of your everyday actions, that you didn't even notice are chain reactions. Knowing about the future consequences of your decisions and actions could help you become aware of what you really want to do as well as help you make better decisions in the here and now.
Action Steps: Now It Is Time to Stop Reading and Start Doing
Here is the general formula to use Consequential Time Traveling to your benefit.
Observe your initial impulse: Observe one action that you are just about to do. Or think about a decision that you are about to take soon, and that you would like to make soon.
Realize the short-term consequences: Imagine what you would feel like and what consequences this action or decision would have on your life in the short-term. This would be anything between one hour to one month.
Realize the mid-term consequences: Imagine what you would feel like and what consequences this action or decision would have on your life in the mid-term. This could be around 1 year.
Realize the long-term consequences: Imagine what you would feel like and what consequences this action or decision would have on your life in the long-term. This could be around 5 or even 10 years. You pick what would feel better for you.
Here is an example:
Observe one thing you are about to do. Maybe it is grabbing for a beverage. Let's pretend it is an ice-cold coke.
Before you drink it realize the effect this would have on your body in the nearby future. Let's say, imagine, how you would feel in about 1 hour.
What would that effect have after 1 day? Especially if you continue to do it.
What would that effect be after 1 month? Again especially if you continue to do it.
What would that effect be in 1 year? Especially if you continue to do it.
What would that effect be in 10 years? What would you look like, feel like and ultimately be like if you continued to do it for 10 years?
Yet realize that all of this chain reaction started with the thing you are just about to do.
Are you still willing to go for that coke?
Try this several times a day with some of your actions, until you get used to it. Then this process will only take about 30 seconds.
