Future Faking: When the Future Feels Safer Than the Present
If you’re dealing with anxiety, ADHD, trauma, or emotional overwhelm, the future can sometimes feel very clear—almost too clear. Plans may feel vivid and comforting before they’ve taken shape in real life. Promises feel reassuring long before they’re carried out.
If this resonates, you may be experiencing future faking. Future faking is more than simply making false promises. It’s often a way the mind copes when the present feels uncertain or uncomfortable.
What Exactly Is Future Faking?
Future faking is a subconscious habit of imagining future plans, commitments, or outcomes as if they’ve already happened, even when there’s little action happening in the present to support them.
It can look like:
- Making big plans that feel emotionally satisfying in the moment
- Talking about future versions of yourself or your life that feel reassuring
- Using promises of “what will happen” to soothe current discomfort
In these moments, the future can feel more solid than the present. The brain treats intention as completion. Relief arrives early—long before action does.
Why Does Future Faking Happen?
Future faking usually isn’t about deception. It often develops from emotional needs or cognitive patterns, such as:
- Emotional regulation: Imagining a better future can temporarily calm anxiety or sadness
- Avoidance: Focusing on tomorrow can help escape today’s discomfort
- Impulsivity or optimism bias: Strong emotions can make plans feel more certain than they are
- Executive function challenges: Difficulty bridging intention and follow-through
The future becomes a safe place to rest, even when the path there isn’t clear.
What It Can Look Like in Everyday Life
- Feeling motivated by plans but struggling to start
- Talking about goals more than taking steps toward them
- Reassuring yourself or others with future promises
- Experiencing guilt or shame when plans don’t materialize
- Feeling stuck between who you are now and who you imagine becoming
Over time, this pattern can create emotional whiplash—hope followed by disappointment, intention followed by self-criticism.
What Can Help
Shifting away from future faking isn’t about giving up hope. It’s about grounding hope in the present.
- Focus on the next step: Break plans into small, manageable actions
- Name intentions honestly: Saying “I want to” instead of “I will” can reduce pressure
- Check realism: Ask what’s possible within your current capacity
- Ground in the present: Bring attention back to what’s already here
Progress doesn’t come from imagining harder. It comes from being supported where you are.
How ShareWell Supports People Who Struggle With Future Faking
At ShareWell, we help bridge the gap between intention and action. Our peer accountability groups and virtual co-working sessions create space to focus on what’s happening now—alongside others who understand how challenging that can be.
In our Body Doubling Sessions, members work quietly together, transforming vague future plans into gentle, doable moments of progress. There’s no need to promise a better tomorrow to belong here. You’re supported exactly as you are, in the present moment.
If you’d like support grounding goals and intentions in community, join a peer support group today.