Are you past, present or future focused?

Nat: If you follow us on Instagram, you’ll have seen Kristen’s win of the week a couple of weeks ago was her time zones. It’s not time zones — it’s the way you relate to time makes a difference to how you feel about life. That’s all I know, that’s all she would tell me, because as per, we don’t have conversations anymore, we save it for the podcast so we can have the conversation in front of you all. So I’m going to hand over to Kristen, because I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and you’ll guide us through this.

Kristen: Nor did I! I was asked at dinner — there was someone at this dinner party who’d done a TEDx talk on this very thing, amongst other things, an entrepreneur. And someone at the table started talking about, are you a present, future, or past person, in whatever order you want to say it? And I was like, I don’t know, what’s that? And they described the different time horizons and where you might default to. There are three ways of thinking about time, and generally everyone has a default — it’s called temporal focus. It’s been scientifically studied, there’s a scale, and then there’s been a lot of behavioral stuff layered on top of it, but we’ve stripped it back to the default state — the tendencies of how we navigate the world by default. That’s not to say we don’t think in other times — I’m getting ahead of myself, let me pull back a bit. But research shows it’s an accurate measure of where our attention goes. Most of us have a default, and some genuinely are mixed, and that’s okay. It’s worth knowing just to seek balance where needed. So it’s not static, it doesn’t define you — it’s just a predisposition that’s useful to know.

Nat: I think that’s great, and I want to further that disclaimer, because things like personality tests have become a bit of a trope, and there’s been a bit of a tide turning against them — you know, some of them were literally invented, like one that was invented by a mother and daughter who got annoyed by something. Some are more scientifically based than others, but we love them, and there’s a good reason: they give you a starting point. They’re not something that locks you into “this is who I am, thus this is who I’ll always be.” They’re a great way to go, this has taught me something about me — maybe not completely accurate, but something I can tie to where I want to go or who I want to be, so I can make changes. I think for both of us that’s really interesting, and it’s also interesting to learn about each other, because we work so closely together — as you should find with your colleagues too. The more we know about how each other’s brains work, the more we can adapt our behavior to get better outcomes and more joy and fulfillment from our work. Okay, back to you.

Kristen: A couple of things on that. First, I agree that knowing it didn’t change my life, it wasn’t some breakthrough revelation. But what I used it for was to communicate my tendencies to you, to Kyla, and to a friend I spend a lot of time with. It helps them understand why I might react to something initially in a certain way, and it creates helpful conversations. I think if we make these personality tests all about self — naturally we’re curious about self, which I’ll get to in my second point — but really what they help us do is understand one another. I liked that people at the dinner table asked, well, what are you? And I said, I have no idea, very low self-awareness, I need to take a test — which I went home and asked AI to do. I just said, come up with thirty questions to figure out which category I fit. It came through quite strongly — I’m not going to share what. My second point, very quickly — I was listening to a podcast, can’t remember which one, I listen to them overnight, I fall asleep and wake up to them. It talked about the rise of addictions, online addictions — might be conflating two episodes — and I think it was the same one talking about our deep addiction to things like porn or gambling, and what’s happening there.

Nat: Well, I can’t say our deep addiction to porn—

Kristen: No, but humans generally. And what was interesting was this woman categorized all humans now, in modern developed countries, as something narcissistic — there was a scientific word she used. I think it’s a sign that we’re deeply obsessed with ourselves, and I’m flagging it because — she was tying it to this whole thing of labeling ourselves and the rise of pathologizing everything. It’s good and bad, right, but she was saying we’re deeply narcissistic now, completely—

Nat: Do you think we are now, or we just have more tools now? Because one of the best comms tips I ever heard is if you want to be really interesting and engaging in a conversation, just get curious about the other person, because our favorite topic is ourselves.

Kristen: So I just wonder if we’ve always—

Nat: —been that way, but now we just have more ways to express it, through posting on Instagram, doing personality tests, whatever else.

Kristen: I think there’s probably a Maslow’s hierarchy of needs angle. If you roll back fifty to a hundred years, we were probably worried about different stuff — many of us are no longer worried about what we’re going to wear or how we’ll keep ourselves safe and sheltered. We’re at that ultimate self-actualization, which is a really self-centered place to be, really. Here we are.

Nat: Fabulous. I also — I get all my research from Instagram — I saw a reel over the weekend that really spoke to me about expectations, the expectation gap. Did I send it to you?

Kristen: You did.

Nat: The idea was — years ago, or a hundred years ago, my expectation was that I’d have to work my whole life, life would be somewhat hard, I’d get married, whatever it is. So when reality met that expectation, I felt fine with it. Whereas now we almost have no limits, and we have this expectation that life is cushy and comfortable and immediate and friction-free. When it doesn’t match that, the betrayal we feel is much harder and much higher. I think that feels relevant to this timeline thing too, because everything we think isn’t reality — it’s how we parse reality through all these different lenses.

Kristen: Right, I’m interested, let’s go. I’m not going to describe each state — I’ve skimmed over them, because I think it’s more helpful for me to run the test on you. While I ask these questions, Powrsuiters listening, feel free to think about how you might have answered, and once Nat’s finished, I’ll go back through the different ways you might have answered and what that means. Again, I used AI to come up with thirty questions, we’re only doing six today. Here are my questions, Nat — you have to answer honestly, and answer your first instinct, don’t layer on what you should do or what you’d like to do. Okay, here we go. Number one: you just found out someone more junior than you got the promotion you wanted. It’s 9pm. What are you doing right now?

Nat: I’m tired, it’s bedtime. I’m going to react irrationally to this — park it, and come back and think about it tomorrow.

Kristen: And then what are you thinking tomorrow?

Nat: Tomorrow I’m thinking, what did I do that led to me not getting that promotion, and someone else getting it ahead of me?

Kristen: Thank you. Nat, you’re at a barbecue, having a little sausage, and someone asks what you do. Tell me how you genuinely respond — not the pitch.

Nat: When you say don’t give the pitch, like, how would I—

Kristen: Describe to me, in the best way possible, how you’d describe what you do. If you want to give me the pitch, do it.

Nat: Okay, I’d say I’ve started a professional development platform for women, it’s about two and a half years old, and I’m having a blast.

Kristen: Anything else?

Nat: I’m trying not to pitch — no, that’s it.

Kristen: Great. Now, your year-end review says you need more executive presence, no examples given. What do you do?

Nat: I’d say, could you please give me examples?

Kristen: Thanks. And if I gave examples that resonated with you, what would you say?

Nat: I’d say thank you, and go figure out what I could do to build executive presence, if they were good examples. If they were examples I disagreed with, I’d probably dig into it a bit more — I’d like to think after the fact, but I could also just spark up in the moment.

Kristen: Okay — you’ve had an amazing win at work, a real win. What’s your first thought?

Nat: I’m going to go tell Kyla, or you.

Kristen: Thanks. Nat, you’re offered a role you’re not sure you’re ready for — you’re genuinely going, ugh. Now what do you do?

Nat: Take it.

Kristen: How so — describe what that looks like.

Nat: I’ve done this so many times, especially back when I was freelancing, running a design business — I was like twenty-five and never ready for anything. I’d just go, I will figure this out. And if I have to work all night and effectively charge a tenth of the hours I spend on it, fine — I’m going to spend the time learning and figuring out how to do this.

Kristen: Okay, Nat — it’s Sunday, 7pm. What’s your brain doing?

Nat: Watching — at the moment, Bad Sisters — eating delicious food and feeling really relaxed.

Kristen: Great. Let me figure out what you mostly answered. I’d say you’re centered more in the past or present, with a small bit of future. There’s a mix in your answers — let me go through all six, so those listening can follow along, and again, feel free to ask your own AI for thirty questions. When I asked about finding out someone more junior got the promotion at 9pm — the past answer is going back the next day to work out what happened, what they didn’t see, what your value was, what went wrong. If it was present, you might have just sat in that feeling. Actually, you lean present too — you were like, no, actually, that’s not — present is how it feels right now, really sitting in it. Future would be immediately planning the next twelve months — could be planning to quit, taking immediate action right then and there.

Nat: I’d do that as step two, once I’ve figured out the problem, then I’d jump in.

Kristen: Right, and that’s why I think people do all sorts of stuff, but it’s about your very first instinct. Okay — someone at a barbecue asks what you do — you were really present, describing what you’re working on right now. Someone who introduces themselves with where they’ve come from and how they got there is more past-focused, that’s the default. Someone future-focused, which I’ve actually seen you flip to immediately, describes what they’re building and where it’s heading.

Nat: Yeah, I think my thing with that — and this is where these tests are always complicated — is at a barbecue, I know my tendency is to focus on the future and go, here’s what I’m changing in the world, but I know that can be socially awkward when I first meet someone, so I default to being really chill about it.

Kristen: Great. With the review question, you went to the future — what to do about it, what to ask, what to change. That was your immediate instinct. Past would be going back to what triggered it. Present would be, this is irritating, this is unfair.

Nat: Is this not the same as question one though — figure out where I went wrong?

Kristen: I know, but you answered differently.

Nat: Oh, okay — same process for me, though.

Kristen: Well, your initial thing was—

Nat: I always start with analyzing what I could change, and then the next step is how do I go and change it.

Kristen: That’s why I think you’re really strongly linked to past initially — because you’re searching for data, and you’ll see that as we go. Past is hunting for a specific incident that might have triggered the feedback. Present is the feeling — this is irritating, it’s not fair. Future is going immediately to what to change. So I appreciate you flipped between them there. Then, good news at work — you went straight to present, tell someone about it right away. Past would be, finally, and sitting in relief. Future would be, forget it, not going to celebrate, on to the next thing. Offered a role you’re not ready for — you went to past, “I trust myself, I’ve done this so much, every time it’s worked out” — straight to the past for data, which tells me you’re strongly in that mode, gathering all the evidence before jumping to action. Present is gut feel, sitting in the fear or excitement. Future is modeling it out right away, spreadsheets, scenarios. Sunday 7pm — past is looking back at the week that’s gone, which we do on Fridays so that tracks less for you. Present is having dinner, enjoying your show, enjoying the moment. Future, which is me, is the week ahead, the calendar, the Sunday-night doom a lot of people feel.

Nat: I did that on Monday though — I do the planning for the week on Friday and Monday. I have a really strong philosophy of not spending my weekend thinking about work. So I feel like if you’d asked me Friday afternoon or Monday morning, I’d have been planning out my week. That’s the challenge with those questions — sometimes it’s, I’m not going to waste my Sunday night worrying about work.

Kristen: But I think you have a tendency to lean slightly past as a default. So, past focus — quickly replays things, understands things by working out how they happened, good for spotting patterns, knowing your track record, backing yourself based on it. Sometimes people get stuck diagnosing instead of deciding, or looking back turns critical and becomes rumination — I don’t think that’s you, but for some people who are constantly looking back, it is. Present-focused is going by how it feels right now — amazing for enjoying your life, knowing when something’s wrong, but it can cost you a five-year plan and leave you at the mercy of moods, since you’re deciding things in the moment. Future is, today is a step towards something — it costs the ability to sit still, it’s always the next step, the next plan, the next thing to look forward to. There’s also a worrying version of future, not a planning version, which can be tough. An example for me — when I did the test, it came back strongly future-oriented, and it talked about me not celebrating wins, always needing to look forward to things, or getting bummed out — and my blood test that I’d been delaying for two and a half weeks. The reason I didn’t want to take it is I was already anticipating a bad call in two weeks saying, Kristen, you’re going to die. That’s my future-worrier coming out — living in the future and worrying about things I don’t like.

Nat: I love that. That totally makes sense to me, and I think we should link to the Business Chemistry one too, because I feel like that’s probably really accurate for me — I love living in the present, I love embracing the day as it is, which is why I don’t like to plan my future on a Sunday night, I’m like, enjoy Sunday night, it’s great. But also, yes, you’re bang on that if I jump straight to the future without doing the analysis of the past, I’ll just repeat the mistakes I made, or have a really unclear plan — I’ll just jump to whatever’s the first thought. So that doesn’t work in my brain — as a second step, totally, but not as the first step. It’s so interesting that that’s not how other people’s brains work.

Kristen: And I’m not even convinced we’re socialized to be this way — it could be how we’re neurologically wired. I suspect if my family members took this, my mum is definitely future-focused, annoyingly so — she’ll be here on holiday with us in New Zealand from the other side of the world, and she’ll already be planning her next trip. So annoying, so much, too much. I don’t know if we’re influenced or what, but it is what it is. It’s helpful to go, I need to borrow from the present a bit more, sit and listen, be present for people, celebrate wins — and probably borrow from the past when faced with a big decision. I probably do a bit of all of it, but it’s about the initial instinct.

Nat: Yeah, and — what was I going to say — I feel like looking at these three, it’s — I think it was Alina, our old community manager and good friend, who said every great strength has an extreme opposite. Being future-focused, constantly thinking what’s next, great, great, great — but the downside can be a lot of worry. Being in the moment, how great to really appreciate what you’ve got right now — but the flip side, are you ruled by your emotions? And being past-focused, drawing from all your life experience to make better decisions — but do you get stuck there? Those all make sense as the opposite side of something that’s really cool.

Kristen: It’s funny that I couldn’t answer this in the moment — I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. I don’t know if that’s a lack of self-awareness or I’d just never thought about it, but people at that dinner conversation seemed to have a really strong sense of self. So if anyone listening has no idea what their default is — amazing, that’s fine, just go ask a robot thirty questions. It’s called temporal focus, there’s some decent scientific research into it, so AI will find it and be able to help you. And if anything ticks the box on that narcissism thing — I’m going to find out whatever that word was — well, we’re just finding out more about ourselves. But I think it’s helpful to have interesting conversations with friends, partners, colleagues, going, ah, that’s one more clue into why you respond that way, which is perfectly okay given how your brain is wired, but it’s good to have healthy conversations about it.

Nat: Yeah, and it’d be interesting to know — because I was talking to Kyla about it over the weekend — if you’d asked me, I would have said I’m present-future focused, because I don’t relate to thinking about the past a lot, I don’t spend much time doing it. So I wonder if people who don’t do the quiz have a slightly different perception of what it actually means — because I feel like if I think about my life, I’m always thinking five years ahead and how we’re going to get there. But that’s not how I make decisions. So it’s interesting that we might misdiagnose ourselves without going through the actual process.

Kristen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that’s where behavioral scientists, psychologists, TEDx speakers have come along and layered their own slants on it — but I’m not convinced all of that is well-founded. For example, some have broken past into past-positive and past-negative — nostalgia, which is really positive, versus rumination, looking back and ruminating. They’ve split present into present-hedonistic, live for today and spend all my money, versus a present where you’re deeply connected to what’s happening right now, in the moment, in a conversation. There’s not a lot of foundational research supporting all those extra layers people have added to the behavioral tests. So if anything, just keep it simple — your default for processing information is in a time horizon, but that doesn’t mean you’re locked into it. It could shift in ten minutes, it could shift in a couple of days.

Nat: How would you recommend someone use AI to test themselves — what prompt did you use? Did you literally say, give me thirty questions to find out my temporal focus?

Kristen: I just said — at the time I didn’t know a lot — there’s a thing called past, present, and future focus as it relates to time horizons and how we behave and react to things, and I’m not sure what I am, can you ask me thirty questions so I can figure out if I’m past, present, or future-focused. That was it. It went and found the research and the schools of thought around it, then asked me the thirty questions, and when it gave me the answer, I was like, oh yeah, I saw myself in it. So I thought, well, there’s something there.

Nat: No, I agree. And it’s interesting, even talking about this not being fixed or concrete — I think I’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last ten years or so really trying to focus on being present in the moment, because I used to be like your mum, going on holidays and already planning the next one. I learned from my mum, who was very present — we’ve talked about this before — she gets so much joy out of eating, to the degree of, should I have half a scone, or the full scone, enjoying the scone in a way that’s almost irritating but also really lovely, very in the present and enjoying the small things. I find that a low-stress and lovely way to live, so I’ve been working on it. I’m pleased I’m coming in as more present-focused, but definitely not hedonistic — I have never spent a cent that I could have invested.

Kristen: It’s so interesting that you’re quite past-positive, by the way — when you talk about your past, it’s quite rose-tinted. You’ve admitted that a little — when you actually see the reality, you go, oh, I thought it was different. I like that, it’s a very positive way to live. Whereas part of my test showed I’m past-negative, I always look back. And I think, to wrap it back up, a lot of how we navigate the world comes down to expectations — whether we meet them, whether they’re appropriate, fair, realistic. When I look back, because I have such high expectations of myself, I’m disappointed in some of the choices I made. Not big life choices — I’m really happy with my friends and my partner.

Nat: I wish I wasn’t here right now, is what I’m thinking.

Kristen: It often comes down to financial choices, being bummed about my family, my childhood, that kind of stuff. I look back and—

Nat: I wonder — I’m interrupting you, but I’ve been thinking about this a lot — there’s some other research, I won’t even call it research because I don’t know if it is, but it’s also about comparison. Comparison is the thief of joy. If you grow up in an environment, even abject poverty, but everyone else around you is in the same boat, you tend to be a lot happier than if you’re wealthier but the people around you are wealthier than you. There’s research that people would rather not get offered a hundred thousand dollars if their neighbor gets a million, because of that comparison thing. I wonder if there was an element of growing up in the military for me — I lived on a military base, everyone around us earned basically the same money, we led the same lives, went to the same school. I don’t think I really met — I mean, there were definitely some wealthy kids at my school, but I had no concept of it because I only saw them at school. It was when I moved to London at eleven that I had my first experience of, oh, these people are living lives I could never imagine. I wonder if you had quite a different upbringing from the people around you in a way that might have embedded that past-negative or that expectation gap early.

Kristen: Yeah — I had parents with very high expectations, and then I got sent to French schools where people had very different lives from me. I don’t know what it is in my brain, but I’m really attuned to people’s stuff around me, and that’s probably where the comparison started. Even to this day, I’ll be working out with my PT and think, I want biceps like hers. He said the other day, they’re so cut, and I’m like, see how they’re cut, mine are just thick. And he said, people would love to be able to do pull-ups. Comparison—

Nat: Is the thief of joy. No one is unimpressed by it — we’ve had multiple people come up to you at events saying, Kristen, you can do pull-ups.

Kristen: I know, but then I’m like, oh, but her biceps are so cut. He said, comparison is the thief of joy. And I’ve had high expectations for my kids too, so who knows, maybe they’ll be doing a podcast in twenty years working through some of this stuff.

Nat: That’s interesting — do we have time? Because the high expectations thing, I don’t recall feeling like I had particularly high expectations placed on me. I remember it just being the expectation that we’d do our best — that was the only expectation. My parents didn’t have low expectations, but it never played out as “here’s the tangible thing I want you to achieve.” It was always, go do your best — if you muck around or don’t take advantage of opportunities, we’ll be disappointed, but never, here’s what I expect you to achieve in life.

Kristen: No, it wasn’t that for me either — it’s often more insidious. It could have been that I was just more sensitive to it, but at school it was these insanely high-achieving people all off to do incredible things, Rotary, UN, incredible stuff — so it was that, and maybe not feeling as smart as them. The second thing was I was in sporting environments where people actually went to the Olympics — I was on an Olympic pathway from the time I was eleven, and I can’t count on two hands how many people I know who’ve not only been to the Olympics but won medals. So it wasn’t just my family’s expectation to do my best — I was in environments where this is literally what “best” looked like. I know someone who’s summited Everest twice. And I’m like, oh yeah, well, I’ve climbed nothing.

Nat: Okay, I know you need to go, but — my thing with that is, I don’t want to climb Everest. We wanted to go to base camp, although I don’t know if we still do, but for a while we wanted to. This is where I think these tests are really great, because I can see a path in life where I could have had the same mindset as you — I’m not competitive with others, but I am competitive with myself, and I have extremely high standards for myself, and I do get annoyed when I don’t meet them. But for some reason it’s come out differently — I look at people climbing Everest and think, but did I really want to climb Everest? I’m very far away from this, but when I wanted to go to the Olympics as a kid, of course you think, I want to go to the Olympics — and then I realized I didn’t actually want to devote my entire life to one sport. So I was fine with it.

Kristen: The thing was, I was devoting my entire life to it. That’s the thing — I literally was, and I wasn’t good enough.

Nat: You were like, I’m happy to devote my entire life to this. I’m just lazy!

Kristen: And I was on the B team. I’m such a B-team person, I’m in the B team, oh my god, I’m such a B team at netball.

Nat: I was on the F team at netball, and I was having a great time.

Kristen: Anyway, everyone, there’s a little glimpse into my brain. That was fun. We’d love to hear if you do the test, or maybe you have a hunch based on today’s chat about what you are — reach out and tell us, because we just want to start a conversation about what’s going on with you. That’s it.

Nat: I’m going to go ask myself thirty questions and read all this stuff, because you’ve given me a great overview, but now I’m obsessed and I want to go learn more about me, because I am some kind of narcissist. Good.

Kristen: I’ll find that word for next time. Thanks everyone, check out powrsuit.com, give us five stars, and please send us a note, we love hearing from you.

Nat: We’ll catch you all next time. Bye!