I love this question as it's a tough one. We are not wired to be able to think 10 years ahead as science has proven and hence the difficulty. We are very detached from the concept of our future selves and smart people are constantly working on how to bridge this gap. Ideas like ageing facial recognition software to show you your 65 year old self, do help to bridge the gap a little bit, research has shown.

But without this, we try to imagine what we'll be like in 10 years from today and most people respond "I won't be that much different to who I am now I think".

Now, this in my opinion, is a huge under estimation of the changes we all go through so to counter this you need to ask a follow-up question of yourself. We think and assume that the things we like now, for example, we will always like as much as we do right now. A lot of nostalgia is built up in our memory banks and a lot of it is inaccurately stored. Our memories are not as accurate as we think they are, much like we all think we are better than average drivers; which cannot be true.

"How different are you now from the person you were in 2012?"

Now if I were a betting man, I'd say there have been a lot of changes in that time period. Some of mine would be as follows:

moved from London to Aylesbury; bought a house with then partner, Anna.

Got married in Italy to Anna

Bought house In Italy

Had a child together after going through IVF

Anna lost her father to cancer

Renewed wedding vows after 5 years

Climbed Kilimanjaro

Changed jobs twice and started my own business in March 2020

Dropped toxic relationships with 2 family members after going through 18 months of therapy

Became super curious about behavioural finance and became a Registered Life planner and coach

We decided to not engage with traditional schooling and Raffaella is flourishing as a result of our choices

I could go on.....

I still love football (less than I did but that's the life of a Man United fan) and love golf more; Asian food is still my favourite and we still plan to live in Italy in 15 years time.

But, because of, in some shape and part, of all the stuff listed above I have become a much more rounded, considered person. I feel I still have a lot more self-awareness to develop but I know that psychologically and mentally I am in a much better place than a decade ago; the big thing is I did not even appreciate how messed up I was inside. That is why EQ and specifically self-awareness are tickets to personal growth. Some of this stuff was by accident and some on purpose. The parts done on purpose have made me really aware of how deliberate we need to be when thinking forwards.

To be even more deliberate, you should ask yourself "What sort of person do I want to be 10 years from now?". Now, that's a question to help formulate a 10 year life plan. Some of it will happen and some of it won't. The rub is you are the person who gets to decide all this; if you're willing to pay the price for what it is you really want.