Are you busy with tasks, swimming in circles?
You set the goals. You painted the vision.
But everything still feels… hard.
This is the most common frustration I’ve experienced, and watched countless others go through.
After years of observing high performers, I noticed something that separates them from the rest:
They’ve mastered the ability to hold two seemingly opposite things at the same time.
And the good news?
It’s a trainable skill.
The Two Sides of High Performance
Thing #1: Create a vivid vision, great and small.
Thing #2: Be present and fully engaged with the activity.
They appear to contradict each other.
How can you be focused on the future and completely immersed in the present?
This is what I call the Vision–Presence Paradox: the skill that turns effort into effortless performance.
Vision
Your vision can stretch as far as your decade or as close as your day.
It’s not about scale; it’s about clarity.
For those new to writing down what you intend to create, start small.
You can work your way up to decades… or even generations.
Present Action
This is your all-consuming presence in the moment.
It’s the deep focus you bring to your craft, your workout, or a playful game.
It’s when your attention and your action are one.
No friction. No forcing.
The Merge: Where the Magic Happens
Here’s the challenge:
Your conscious mind can’t be in two places at once.
You can either zoom out to see the big picture or zoom in to the atom of the moment.
But the subconscious?
That’s a different story.
It’s the supercomputer running the show in the background… automatically, effortlessly.
The problem is, most people’s subconscious is programmed by their past.
Old patterns. Old stories. Old self.
So what’s the solution?
Future–Present Programming.
You tap into your future to program your subconscious now.
You set the coordinates, then return to the present and engage fully in action.
That’s how you hold the paradox. How you align your conscious and subconscious into one powerful current.
Get really good at this and, well… you become Bradley Cooper in Limitless.
The Two Traps
What happens if you only practice one side of the paradox?
Present Action without Vision:
You’ll feel content in motion, but dissatisfied with your results.
You’re the happy hamster, running hard, going nowhere.
Vision without Present Action:
You’ll be the daydreamer: intoxicated by ideas, irritated by reality.
It takes both to create what I call the Limitless Loop, where vision informs presence, and presence fulfills vision.
Exercise: Begin Your First Future–Present Program
- Write your vision.
Choose something you’ve been meaning to create, but haven’t pulled off yet.
This is a small program you’re installing in your subconscious. - Write your next action.
One observable, physical step that moves the needle.
(Thinking, deciding, or talking about it doesn’t count.)
Do this daily.
Small programs stack into big upgrades.
This is how you live the Vision–Presence Paradox: where your future is guiding your present, and your present is fulfilling your future.
Stay stacked,
Mike Bledsoe
P.S. These are the conversations we’re having in the Full Stack community. It’s free to join today.