Your Future Self Is Starting To Hate You
Because every day you delay becoming who you could be, your old life gets harder to escape.
Most people online already know enough to start building something meaningful.
The problem is that the internet trains people to mistake consuming for progress.
The Psychology of Digital Builders explores how digital builders can create more, think more clearly, and spend less time mentally drifting online.
You don’t feel exhausted because growth is impossible.
You feel exhausted because your old life is fighting to survive.
You decide you want to make a change.
That’s awesome.
But everyone wants to make a change.
The difference between you and every one else is gonna be that you’re actually going to make that change.
I have a framework that I’m going to test to make sure I start working out.
I’ve been avoiding it for months and I think it’s time.
This framework is designed to help you to win the battle against yourself in order to evolve as a person.
Because you want to change your life, but you keep reacting from the same old habits that built the life you’re trying to escape.
You’ll learn how to stop reacting like your old self (or the self you don’t want to be any more) and start acting strategically toward the person you want to become.
Your old self survives by making the future feel harder than staying the same.
Your job is to flip that and make staying the same feel harder than your potential future.
It’s Future Me Vs. Old Me… And Old Me Is Winning
Since January 2026, I’ve been on a journey to lose the weight I’ve gained over the past few years.
Since about 2023, I’ve slowly been gaining weight.
In that time, I’ve gained about 40 lbs!
And since it was so slow, I didn’t realize it until it was too late.
I stepped on the scale at one point and was the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life…
212 lbs!
I looked in the mirror and couldn’t believe what I was looking at.
I used to be an in-shape, disciplined, individual who was serious about his health.
Reading that sentence back, that phrase is so sad to read: “I used to be…”
There came a point when I tried to wear my favourite pair of jeans and I just couldn’t fit into them anymore.
They were too tight.
Like those guys that try to wear skinny jeans when they clearly can’t?
Legs bulging out, skin tight, can barely move in them…
That was me.
And I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.
I was eating every time I wanted, any time I wanted.
First thing waking up, snacks, ordering food and eating ALL of it in one sitting, late-night snacks? More like late-night meals.
When it comes to the point where you’re eating just because your bored, then it’s a problem.
Anyway, In January 2026, I decided it was time to lose weight.
I tried a couple times before but it didn’t stick.
Either something happened in the middle that got me back on to bad eating habits, or I tried the wrong diet.
I couldn’t understand…
I’ve successfully lost weight following strict diets before.
Why wasn’t it working any more?
Well, since starting in January this year, I’m glad to say that I’ve lost about 20 lbs.
It’s great because I wasn’t following any dramatic diets that I used to follow.
I did it just by eating less than I did and sticking with it.
I track my weight.
So I could see that my weight from the beginning of the year was showing it was going down, on a downward slope.
But since about April, I noticed that my weight loss plateaued — it started going sideways instead.
So my only fix for this, I think, is that I have to start working out again.
I’ve been working out, on and off, since I was 16.
That’s more than half my life.
I’m 37 now.
But right now, I’ve just been focusing on my online work since my wife and I got married, which is coming up to almost a full year now.
I’ve been wanting to work out for a while now.
I wanted to go to the gym that’s around here in the mornings…
And I was supposed to start in June…
But haven’t been able to.
It really feels like a battle against myself.
My future self that I want to be versus the old me I want to get rid of — the one who doesn’t prioritize his physical health.
I have all the intentions to start, but when it comes time to do something about it, I come up with a very convincing excuse.
Intentions don’t mean shit.
Actually getting up and doing it is what matters.
And I’m not doing it.
One of the excuses that came to mind was that it was too far.
(It’s a half hour walk away).
And my wife killed that excuse in a second.
“Why don’t you just work out at home?”
Fuckin’ duh!
Why didn’t I think of that?
I was so caught up with working out with heavy weights, I have SOME weights at home.
But do you think my lazy ass started working out yet?
Nope.
Maybe I’m hesitating so hard because I don’t look forward to the soreness that happens when starting to work out after not working out in so long…
But that soreness only lasts 3 days and after that, I won’t be sore again no matter how hard I work out. (As long as I keep working out consistently).
I need serious help getting my ass to pick up those weights again.
And I think I’ve found a way, based on research, to get myself to start… just start.
I’m actually more excited about the framework than I am about working out.
I’ll get to that in a bit, but let me show you why, based on my research, changing your life feels like a battle against the person you used to be.
Changing Your Life Feels Like A Battle… But Why?
Changing your life feels like a war against your old self because there is a literal internal conflict between your brain and your habits, physically fighting each other.
Research shows that this struggle happens between two different identities, the voices in your head, and even the physical parts of your brain.
According to research, people who subscribe to The Psychology of Digital Builders are more likely to win the battle against their old self to become who they need to be.
The Conflict Between Two Identities
This change feels like a battle because your current identity is built on years of “proof,” reinforced by years of evidence from your past habits.
James Clear explains that your identity is your “repeated beingness” — who you’ve been over and over again.
When you try to change, you are trying to win kinda like an “election” against your old self.
You must cast “new votes” through identity-based habits so you can focus on who you want to become.
The Inner Dialogue and the “Second Voice”
David Goggins says this battle is an inner dialogue between multiple voices.
Most people have one voice that wants to be lazy and stay in that “comfortable” place — the “path of least resistence.”
To change, you have to build a “second voice” that wins the fight against the part of you that wants to quit.
Goggins emphasizes that he never “turns the thing off” because the moment he stops the work, he goes back to being that insecure, 300-pound version of himself that still exists in his mind.
The Biological Reality of Willpower
Science shows that there is a physical reason for this fight.
A part of the brain called the anterior mid-cingulate cortex (AMCC) grows when you keep doing things you do not want to do.
But at the same time, this part of the brain can shrink just as fast as it grows.
This means that the “will to live” and willpower itself needs constant upkeep.
If you stop doing the difficult activities that challenge your old self, that brain “muscle” gets smaller again, making the battle feel like a never-ending siege.
The Archetypal Struggle: Aries vs. Athena
Robert Greene frames this battle using Greek archetypes..
He says that humans are part Aries and part Athena.
Aries being the animal nature, emotion, and immediate reaction…
And Athena being consciousness, rationality, and strategy.
In stressful situations, the “Aries” part of our nature tends to dominate, pushing us to be impatient, greedy, or emotional.
To change your life, it’s a process of using the “Athena spirit” to defeat the “ugly Aries part of your nature.”
Entropy and the “Anti-Vision”
From a systematic perspective, Dan Koe says that without constant order, your life will naturally decline into chaos or entropy.
Doing things without thinking leads to a life you hate, which he calls and “anti-vision.”
The battle feels hard because you have to break your “addiction to feeling like shit,” requiring redirecting mental energy away from entropy and toward a structured vision of the future.
Tactical Hell
Finally, the battle feels like a war because many people are stuck in “tactical hell.”
This is when you only react to small, immediate problems instead of acting with purpose.
Strategy is like a bridge that turns a new idea into a real thing.
To win the battle against your old self, you need a “mental transformation” that helps you see the whole “battlefield” of your life.
The Old Self Battle Plan
So, the framework.
I can’t wait to test this for myself.
When it works and it get me to start working out again, I’ll probably provide a little update to let you know how it works out (pun intended).
Let’s call this The Old Self Battle Plan.
1. See The Anti-Vision
Write down where your current habits are taking you.
Make it so that where you’re headed is a place where you absolutely do not want to be.
Somewhere you’re scared to be.
Make the cost of staying the same impossible to ignore.
You can easily jot down the things that you want to avoid coming back to or getting to.
It could be anything from wanting to avoid:
not having food or money to buy food so you ate nothing but a spoonful of peanut butter for a couple days — this would be the motivation to get out of poverty
a situation where there’s someone you like and instead of your friends helping you two get together, they fix them up with someone else — this would be the motivation to get yourself a partner, or even new friends
gaining so much weight you progressively see photos of yourself over the years just getting bigger and rounder — this would be the motivation to finally start that diet or start exercising
For me, it would probably be bringing up the memory of:
not fitting in my jeans
not fitting properly in my clothes
being round
just not feeling like myself
2. Step Out Of Tactical Hell
Stop reacting to every impulse, distraction, and emotion.
Create a strategy that you’d be able to follow.
Not like a formula to follow, but a philosophy and a way of looking at the world.
Create distance so you can see the battle clearly.
This could be anything from:
finally getting rid of the belief that money is evil or makes you evil — this could be preventing you from being rich yourself
realizing that dating is just a numbers game and not to take rejection so personally — this could be preventing you from just starting to date
thinking you have to limit yourself from eating the things you like and enjoy, replacing it with plain rice, boiled chicken breast, and steamed broccoli — this could be preventing you from even starting your weight loss journey
For myself, I’ll have to bring forward the beliefs I had before a year ago:
start day 1 with one set of each work out and wait out the soreness
once the soreness passes, I’ll be clear to work out every day again without feeling sore again
work out every day because losing one day of working out will start a chain reaction and miss 2 days, 3 days, then another year
3. Stop Fighting The Last War
Identify the old formulas you keep repeating.
Because if you continue to do the things same things every day, you’ll continue to get the same results.
Ask what this situation actually requires now.
This could be things like:
automatically spending a big chunk of your paycheck as soon as you get it every time — where you could be using that money to invest instead, growing your money instead of spending it
being at home drinking all day or playing video games every day — where you could be spending your time on dating apps, getting matched, and going out on dates
eating any time and every time you feel like because you like the way it makes you feel — where you could be practicing some self-control, to not overeat all the time, and slowly start to lose weight
For me, it might be:
realizing I have to create a space in my day for a work out
I may have to change my eating patterns
maybe not start work until I finish my work out
4. Choose The Friction
Do the hard things you don’t feel like doing.
Go toward the obstacle that’s in front of you because what you seek will be on the other side.
Build willpower through the work that sucks.
For some people, this could be:
posting every day on social media to market your product or services — because once you’re able to get used to posting videos of yourself online, making money would be the next thing to happen
get through the chatting when you match with someone — because once you’re able to get used to conversing with people, have them engage back, and set up dates, the next thing to happen would be the actual date
actually getting yourself to say “no” to your stomach when it acts like it’s hungry or stopping yourself from eating the entire plate — because once you’re able to practice some self-control, the next thing you’ll see is the numbers on your scale get lower and lower
For me, this could simply be just starting, because once I get past the soreness, a couple weeks of discipline will turn into habit…
And once it becomes a habit, it’ll be smooth sailing from there.
5. Repeat Until It Becomes You
Touching on my last point…
Just a couple weeks of discipline is all I need to turn it into a habit.
Once it becomes a habit, just continue to do it, regardless of how boring it becomes.
Make the boring fundamentals your default.
Become the kind of person your old self could not sustain.
This could simply be:
making 100 cold outreach calls every day — keep doing this and you’re bound to get yourself a client eventually
swiping on 100 people per day — keep doing this and you’re bound to match with someone you actually like
eat 100 calories less than you normally do every week — keep doing this and you’re bound to lose that weight and not make it so difficult on yourself
This will probably be the easiest part for me, honestly?
And in using this framework, I’d be able to lose the next 20 lbs, as long as I continue to eat in a way that would fuel me and not eat for pleasure.
As for you, whether it’s fighting your old self to make more money, ship that product, find that special someone, or become that special someone, you’re not that far off…
It’s just on the other side of your old self.
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