This was me in 2017. I call it my Grey Picture. Because that’s how I felt – grey, blah and out of sorts.
I’d been soothing my teething grandson for days. As I tried to capture the (finally) sleeping toddler, I caught this accidental selfie.
The shock rippled through every cell. WHO THE HELL IS THIS?? This is not me. In that instant, a Future Me was born – glamourous, self-led, living her own life … not the one that focused solely on making her family’s life easier.
This is me in 2019.
My Future You Gap was two years long.
In that time, I made some of the most selfish self-honouring decisions I’d ever made in my 50+ years but I didn’t do it alone. I’m not sure I could’ve done it alone.
Because some visions need witnesses. Some dreams need accomplices.
And because surviving the years of gap between your vision and your reality requires more than individual willpower – it requires people who will conspire with your vision even when you can’t. Who see you as who you’re becoming, and hold that truth even when all you see is what is.
This article is about what it takes to survive the agonizing space between knowing who you are and becoming who you are. This is about surviving what I call “The Future You Gap”.
Because for a woman with a vision, the gap is excruciating.
The Brutal Mathematics of the Future You Gap
Right now, you are immersed in the life your Past Selves built for you.
The decisions they made to stay or go;
the choices – both small and monumental;
The décor, the job, the relationships, the health.
The stories you chose to believe and the ones you dismissed.
Everything in your current life is the result of a decision made by Who You Were Then.
Your Future will be the result of decisions you make as Who You Are Now.
And you likely won’t be living that vision till 2026-2027
We don’t live in a ‘bibbity-bobbity-boo’ universe, (no matter how hard Disney tried to sell it) and sadly, no-one’s perfected a Transmogrification chamber. Yet.
Yes, the inside shift – that life altering decision like the one I made when I saw that selfie – can happen in an instant.
But reality simply doesn’t move that fast.
Your ‘outside’ needs time to reorganize itself.
And sometimes, that can take months. In my experience, it takes years.
Two years – the exact same length of time as a Mars transit.
This time lag isn’t just inconvenient – it’s the thing that breaks people.
Six years ago (3 x 2), I was holding a vision that seemed impossible. The woman I am today – the clients, the Cunard cruises, the luxe apartment, the way I show up in the world – that woman seemed like a fantasy in 2019. But here I am, living a life that once what once felt unreachable.
Two/four/six years from now, I’ll be living the result of what I choose today.
And so will you.
All while dealing with circumstances that reflect choices you made when you knew so much less about what you were capable of.
The Anguish of the Gap
The Future You Gap – that space between your vision and your current reality -isn’t just uncomfortable.
At times, it’s agonizing.
You can see exactly where you’re going. You know what needs to happen. You can feel the weight of the life you’re meant to be living.
But you’re still dealing with a life built from old decisions, old limitations, old versions of you who couldn’t see what you see now.
This creates a particular kind of suffering. It’s like being homesick for a home that doesn’t exist yet. It’s the anguish of knowing your outsides don’t match your insides. It’s why we numb out, spend too much, and chase shiny things we think will ease the ache.
The intensity of holding space for something that isn’t here yet – and might not be here for years – is more than most nervous systems can handle.
So we get addicted to the dopamine hit of instant gratification. We settle, doubt, talk ourselves out of stuff. Because becoming is slow. Transformation is slow. And it gets all the slower every time we ‘drop out of character’.
All our attention gets focused on the gap – the pain of it, the apparent endlessness of it.
Consequently, we stay there far longer than we need to.
Beware The False Hierarchy of Dreams
Somewhere along the way, we created a hierarchy of dreams that serves no one.
Everyone talks about the Extraordinary Goal, the Mission, Your Big Dream.
They’re the ones that get the applause – changing the world, building an empire, revolutionising an industry.
But the personal visions?
How we want to look.
Where we want to live.
What we want our mornings to feel like.
Those get dismissed as shallow. Frivolous. “Not serious enough.”
Especially if they happen to be luxe and glamourous.
And that, darling, is what keeps people stuck in the gap.
When I finally stepped onto the Queen Mary II for my transatlantic crossing, I felt the shift.
Not because of the voyage itself – although I’d live onboard in a heartbeat – but because it had lived in my imagination for so long.
The red lips. The elegant eveningwear. The feeling of being fully me — not playing dress-up, but inhabiting a long-held vision.
All those years I postponed it, I was quietly reinforcing the lie that my small goal of taking a cruise was less important than the big one of helping people with my work. That because I couldn’t yet afford the suite, I shouldn’t bother going on the cruise at all.
These so-called small visions are not fluff.
They’re foundation.
They’re rehearsal.
They’re soul-level affirmations that say, “I get to be her now.”
The entrepreneur who won’t invest in beautifying her workspace because it feels “too indulgent” will likely hesitate in getting the help she needs to keep burnout at bay.
The coach who says “I’ll dress the part once I’m more successful” is unconsciously practicing not being the woman she longs to be.
Your personal visions and your professional ones?
Same current.
Same compass.
Same You. Just viewed from different angles.
The show looks very different from the balcony than it does from orchestra level.
And how you want to move through the world is inextricable from the impact you want to make in it.
The Gap Is Not a Problem to Solve
Here’s what took me far too long to learn:
The Future You Gap isn’t actually a problem.
It’s not a sign you’ve failed.
It doesn’t need fixing.
It needs inhabiting.
With devotion.
With aligned action (I don’t love that term but here, it’s accurate).
With a lavish focus on creating (and logging) the delicious wins that build momentum and recalibrate your surroundings in support.
You decide it’s happening.
And you stop leaving room for anything else.
You don’t wait for the outside world to shift. You start shifting the inside world.
You make your coffee with more ceremony.
You write your next post wearing lipstick and lace (or a ballgown, or nothing at all, if that gets the … um … juices flowing)
You light the good candle before dinner and wear the luxe perfume to do laundry.
These are not little things. They are spells. Invitations. Directorial cues.
They say, “We’re already in Act One. Let’s go.”
Embodiment Changes Everything
This is what I teach and coach/mentor on.
Not in theory. In practice. In the mirror – both metaphorical and real.
Your future self is already here, darling.
She’s whispering instructions. Leaving clues.
She’s not waiting for you to bridge the gap. She is the bridge.
The neuroscience agrees. Embodiment rewires your brain. As your identity updates, your behaviours shift. And the world starts responding differently because you are different.
This is how reality reorganizes itself around a woman with vision.
What It Actually Takes to not just Survive The Future You Gap, but make sure you get through it
Let’s face it, holding vision is easy. Every entrepreneur, every artist, every leading lady can hold vision.
I mean, that’s the fun part, right? The dreaming, the planning, the imagining. Isn’t that why Pinterest exists??
Bridging the gap between vision and reality is what separates those who make their visions real from those who don’t.
Bridging the gap is where the magic – and the mastery – lies.
Seth Godin talks about The Dip in entrepreneurship – that valley right before everything works out, where most people quit just before breakthrough.
But the Future You Gap is harder than The Dip because it lasts longer. Much longer. The Dip is measured in months. The Gap can be measured in years. You can push yourself through The Dip on guts and grit. But one to two years of focus needs an entirely different set of strategies.
Strategy 1: The File of Fabulousness
What you focus on you get more of, right?
Back when I was a newbie entrepreneur and a rookie coach who’d only just done her “Great Quitting” of all things network-marketing, I felt lost. Untethered. Unsure of who I was without the old identity.
So I started collecting little wins.
Not the show-stopping hits; the little bits of evidence that I was heading in the right direction. The first comment on a blog post; the first time someone asked to coach with me; the day my credit card debt ticked down another hundred dollars.
But more importantly, I started curating the Nice Things People Say About Me. I created a digital folder of screenshots of comments, FB conversations and client successes and I called it my File of Fabulousness.
Because somehow it felt easier to believe an affirmation when it came from other people.
I’d think, “They actually said that. That’s how they see me. That’s the result they got.
So it must be real, right?”
You have to collect these moments consciously, deliberately, or else they’ll slide into your dailiness.
But here’s what takes this practice up to magical levels – let yourself feel the full impact. Not just notice them and move on, but actually absorb the evidence that you’re not just becoming That Future You.
You’re already her.
She’s here, now, and your life is beginning to mirror that back to you, a little bit at a time.
Strategy 2: The Willing Suspension of Disbelief
This is a theater term but you do it already.
Every time you watch a movie, or read a work of fiction, or drink imaginary tea from a thimble sized teacup with your daughter, you choose to temporarily accept the impossible or unrealistic.
The term was introduced by the English poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the early 19th century. He used it to describe how audiences could appreciate literature that included fantastical or supernatural elements, provided the author created a sense of “human interest” and “semblance of truth”.
Your nervous system responds to congruence. It doesn’t care if the origin is ‘real’ or rehearsed — it follows the signals you send.
This is not about delusion:
Listen to me clearly, angel. The “willing suspension of disbelief” doesn’t require you to genuinely believe in a fictional world. It’s about choosing to set aside disbelief for the sake of experiencing the story you’re creating, the role you’ve chosen to play – as you play it.
You begin to move toward something you want before you believe it’s possible
It’s a dynamic collaborative process between you, your Future Self and the real world.
This is acting as if – for real.
When an audience temporarily accepts a fictional world on an imaginative level, it allows for deeper emotional engagement with characters and events.
So we cheer when they triumph, and cry when they die, even though that ‘person’ doesn’t actually exist. We feel them as real – because you chose to.
When you begin acting on your vision before you can see how it will work, circumstances start changing around you.
You get what Jim Niswonger calls ‘new eyes’. You see things differently because you’re looking through her lens. Opportunities become visible that were always there but hidden from your old perspective.
A supporting cast appears – people who can see where you’re going and want to help you get there.
The universe will begin conspiring with you, but only after you prove you’re serious by taking action before the evidence shows up. (I’ve written about this before – this is how we sold our MN house, moved to GA and created a whole new life. It’s also how I went on my first Cunard Transatlantic cruise after decades of dreaming, even though our finances hadn’t changed at all.)
Strategy 3: Visual Cues
You need daily reminders that your vision is real; that you are already her;
A deliberate process of surrounding yourself with tangible evidence that your Future Self exists right now, in tiny pockets of your present life.
No amount of affirmations or positive thinking provide the same ‘weight’ as something you can see or hold or experience.
Some people call these objects talismans or totems – I’ve expanded on that.
I create Activation Stations – objects/spaces/experiences that pull my Future into the present, so I can BE her now.
They can range from the meeting I have with my Inner CEO every Monday, to the Hydration Station on my kitchen counter, to the chic, upscale hotel room I’ve booked for my upcoming photoshoot.
Get creative about sprinkling ‘evidence’ of your Future Self throughout your present life – think of them as the sets and props of the life you want and put them everywhere.
They become a bridge between here and there. And the best part? Your brain doesn’t argue.
Strategy 4: Your Supporting Cast
Sometimes – okay, often – you will lose faith. The gap will feel too wide, the pacing too slow, the odds too overwhelming.
You’ll lose sight of what you’re building.
You’ll look in the mirror and only see what is.
You need a supporting cast – people (or even one person) who sees past what is and into your vision of could be, and who’ll hold the faith till you find it again. Someone like me!
Your Future Self doesn’t need validation but she does require witnessing, mirroring and a co-director.
There’s truly no such thing as a one woman show. Even the greatest leading lady needs people backstage to make her vision real.
Strategy 5: Trust Your Knowing Over Your Circumstances
This is the hardest part.
You need the audacity to keep choosing your true self over your current circumstances. This is where most people crumble, because every inch of your present reality will try to convince you you’re asking for too much. Too bold. Too extravagant. Too … whatever.
Your bank balance, your inbox, your calendar… they’re all echoes of who you used to be. And they’ll beg you to shrink, to compromise, to settle.
But holding your vision means trusting what you know – not what you see. And doing it daily. Repeatedly. Relentlessly. Until the world catches up.
Your Future Self is not waiting for you to bridge the gap. She is the bridge.
Jacqueline Gates
another dream come true
The Most Radical Move Of All
Treat your visions as sacred.
Not just the big world-changing ones.
But especially the tender, private, exquisitely you-centered ones.
The ones no one claps for.
The ones that feel like too much or too soon or too fancy or too far.
They’re not “extra.” They’re essential.
They are the coordinates of your inner map.
That’s how you learn to hold a vision — by honouring the ones that matter only to you.
When I booked that cruise, I wasn’t just planning a trip.
I was reclaiming a version of myself that had waited long enough.
And every day I showed up as her before we embarked – wearing my kimonos, my lashes, my unapologetic eccentricity – I closed the gap a little more.
This is the crux of deep, long-lasting reinvention.
You hold the dream when no one else can see it.
You move like it’s real before it has evidence.
And you find the right accomplices along the way.
Your vision is not too much.
Your timeline is not too ambitious.
Your resources are not too limited.
You are exactly the woman meant to hold this dream.
Otherwise you wouldn’t have it.
And you are absolutely capable of surviving the space between now and Next.
The question isn’t whether your vision will come true.
The question is — will you live now like it already has?
Because that’s when it does.
Only always.
With glamour, grit, and the wisdom of Already Her,
PS My deepest thanks to the incomparable Kelly Diels, Accomplice Extraordinaire for listening to my 10 minute monologue on this particular phenomena, and distilling it down to four potent words – The Future You Gap. You see me. And I’m forever grateful.
PPS If this stirred something in you and you can feel you’re ready to close the gap between the life you have and the one that’s already whispering your name, let’s talk about working together. You’ll find my current coaching options here.
Thank you for this post! It’s SO inspiring!!