#44: Your Perfect Day Reflects Your Self-Concept

The Perfect Day - A Self-Concept Tool

How Your Ideal Day Unlocks Your Future Identity

When I ask someone to write out their perfect day as part of the Try Life On process, I usually get a mix of excitement and hesitation. Some dive right in. Others hold back, thinking it’s just another “visualization” exercise. Others struggle with it and write a "responsible" day as many adults have forgotten how to dream.

The exercise is misunderstood at times as a cursory level effort, but it's far from that. It's actually a psychological blueprint of the person you are becoming. It’s an opportunity to tap into your self-concept: the deep, often subconscious beliefs you hold about who you are and what you’re allowed to experience.

What Is Self-Concept and Why It Shapes Everything

Your self-concept is the internal thermostat that regulates your life. If it’s set to scarcity, you’ll unconsciously repel opportunity, wealth, love, and freedom no matter how hard you try. If it’s set to abundance, you’ll naturally make decisions that align with growth, peace, and autonomy. You can make a million dollars, but if your internal identity still sees you as “bad with money,” you’ll find a way to lose it. This is why your perfect day matters. It isn’t just a nice exercise—it’s a mirror reflecting your updated self-concept. And it’s a tool for making that identity real.

You will never outperform your self-concept

This is the point of lifestyle design and transformation. It's for you to understand that your outer world is a reflection of your inner one. And if your inner world (self-concept) is not up to par, you won't create the world you desire, the life you want, or the money you're trying to create, for example. You have to be all of it before it even comes.

What Your Perfect Day Is Really Showing You

1. It Reveals Your True Priorities

After your write it, look closely at the details. Are you waking up slowly, spending time with family, doing work you love, or traveling? These aren’t just preferences, they’re values. Your ideal day tells you what matters most when you’re adhering to societal standards for survival or status as a default. Those preferences are what you truly want. 

2. It Points to Who You’re Becoming

That life you wrote about, the one you feel you want to your core... It likely requires a different version of you. One that’s more intentional. One that's more disciplined. Perhaps one that's more open and transparent. Your perfect day reflects the identity shift your wanted future demands.

3. It Highlights the Gaps

Compare your current day with your perfect one. Where are the misalignments? What’s missing? These gaps aren’t failures at all. They're an indication of how you need to grow or shift.

4. It Begins to Rewire Your Mind

The more vividly and consistently you revisit your perfect day, the more your subconscious begins to accept it as normal. Your brain will start scanning your environment for ways to make it real. Your reticular activating system (RAS) starts to work to find the right opportunities for you to execute to get to your desired situation.

5. It Becomes Your Roadmap

Once you know what that life looks like, you can reverse engineer it. What skills does that version of you have? What habits? What boundaries? You don’t have to build it overnight. Just align with it one decision at a time.

Your Future Reality = Your Current Self-Concept

Your perfect day isn’t a far-off destination. It’s a reflection of who you already are becoming. The more you act from that place, the faster your life starts to reflect it. Think as the version of you who already lives that day.  Act as them. Make choices from their mindset—not about “someday,” but from today.

Final Thought: You Must Become Before You Receive

If your current life doesn’t match the life you wrote down, it’s not because it’s impossible. It’s because your self-concept hasn’t caught up yet. But it can and will. I've lived it in my journey.

Start small. Think and make decisions "from" your perfect day, not just about it. And watch as your internal identity transforms your external reality. Want to go deeper with this process or explore how to build your life around your values and ideal vision?

Check out Newsletter 40, Newsletter 18 and Podcast Episode 84. Or better yet, hit reply and send me a message. I’d love to hear what your perfect day looks like.

Maurice

P.S. Highly recommend you to research 'Self-Concept' for a more thorough understanding. It will supercharge your lifestyle journey.