Main ideas
We’re always thinking. Even when we’re not thinking, we’re still thinking. This can create a chain reaction from one thought to the next, our mind jumping through space and time, until our last thought is completely different from, yet uniquely linked to, our first.
This is called mental time travel, and we’re quite good at it. It’s been described as what sets our species apart: the ability to contemplate the future, and to thrive by considering our prospects.
Unfortunately, when our minds are running wild, our thoughts aren’t always helpful. But what if thinking about our lives at different times could help us manage our emotions, and improve our decision making for what really matters?
By strengthening the connections between our past, present and future selves, we can gain a new perspective on what’s important, and help create the future we want.
Instead of a single, central self at our core, we are an aggregation of separate, distinct selves. You are actually a “we”. Even right now, you might have a morning self, a work self, a nighttime self, and selves everywhere in between.
When you think back to who you were ten years ago, you might seem like a completely different person from who you are today. Project that difference into the future, and it’s easy to imagine yet another version of yourself. How we think about and treat our future self can actually help us create a better future.
To make better decisions today that create happier tomorrows, we need to close the gap between our present and future selves. By treating those distant selves as if they were loved ones, we can make choices for them that improve our lives now and later.
By thinking about our future selves, we can plan for them, shape them and change them. Your fate is not fixed. Not even close.
Part I: The journey ahead
Who are we as we travel through time?
Are we the “same” over time?
Imagine a boat sailing around the world. Along its journey, it makes many stops for repairs: a new sail, some floorboards, and so on. By the time it finishes its trip around the world, years later, every piece has been replaced. Is it still the same boat, or is it now an entirely different boat?
We’re always changing, while staying the same, at least on some level. If you’re a shy child, you’re more likely to be a shy adult. Although our experiences shape who we become, people with shared experiences aren’t shaped in identical ways. There is stability in where you stand compared to others, but it’s still possible to grow in important traits.
We have five core personality traits: openness to new experiences, conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion and neuroticism. Most people only show significant change in one of them over a decade. So although we change over time, we mostly stay the same.
So we’re not an entirely new boat, but we’re definitely not the same boat either. It really comes down to our own perception. If the boat still feels like our boat, we’ll treat it that way. If it feels like a different boat, we’ll treat it with less care, as if it were a rental.
If you feel a strong connection between your present and future selves, even though your present self is different from your past self, and your future self will be different from who you are today, you’re much more likely to do the hard work of self-improvement.
So what makes us, us? Maybe it’s your body (but that changes), or your mind (but that forgets). Research suggests that what makes us who we are is our sense of “moral self”: the person we most want to be. We see drastic changes in many areas of our lives that don’t necessarily define us. Through that change, what does define us is the person we strive to be.
Is future me really… me?
As we turn into new, future versions of ourselves, our thoughts and feelings change in ways we can’t anticipate. We can’t know what we will think and feel, since those thoughts and feelings may change drastically by then. On some level, our future selves will always be strangers to us.
If we are confident that our future selves will keep some of our core moral values, then perhaps it’s still worth caring for them and planning for those distant versions of us, even with some mystery around them. Understanding how we view our future selves, as either extensions of us or as other people, can give us insight into the choices we make today.
Instead of a single constant self, we are a collection of separate selves, with each of our identities a series of interlocking selves over time. Each successive self has a lot in common with the one before and the one after. But with enough distance, we start to lose some of those connections. With a lot of distance, past or future selves may feel like strangers, or completely different people altogether.
Why does any of this matter? Because we treat strangers differently. Even nice people tend to act in self-interested ways, prioritizing themselves, their friends and their family. If we view our future selves as strangers, and we tend to act in self-interested ways, then what reason is there to do things for their benefit?
Research shows that in our mind’s eye, and in the activity of the brain, we tend to think of our future selves as completely different people.
We may see our future selves as other people, but what truly matters is what sort of people they are. If they are strangers, there aren’t many good reasons to sacrifice for them. But if they are closer to us, more like a best friend or a loved one, then we may be considerably more likely to do things today that benefit us tomorrow.
Relationships with our future selves
When we have a stronger connection to our future self, when we feel more similar to them, we are more likely to do things that benefit them, like giving up money today for more money down the road.
- You today
- You in 20 years
Pick the pair that best describes how similar and connected you feel to the person you’ll be in 20 years. Research by Hal Hershfield and colleagues has found that people who pick more overlap tend to save more for the future.
The more connection people felt with their future selves, the more they had saved, and the better their overall financial well-being was.
Research shows there’s very little difference in brain activity between thinking about yourself and thinking about someone close to you (a best friend, a parent, a loved one), but a bigger difference when thinking about a stranger. One study found that the more similar someone’s future self looked to their present self in the brain (measured with an MRI), the more patient they were in waiting for a bigger reward later.
Our relationship with our future self extends beyond dollars and cents. People who feel more connected to their future selves are more likely to make ethical decisions, study harder in school, eat healthier and exercise more, all leading to better well-being and higher life satisfaction.
When people consider what makes them feel connected to future versions of themselves, they naturally include the idea of self-improvement. You can feel a bond with your future self, sensing that you’re similar and share a connection, while still expecting to get better at the things that make you “you” over time. You won’t become a different person, just a better one.
Changing your sense of connection to your future self can boost your willingness to take action on their behalf. The closer you feel to your future self, the better you’ll prepare for your future, whatever it brings.
Part II: Turbulence
Understanding the mistakes we make as we move from now to later.
Missing your flight
We often focus too much on our current selves. The present becomes our anchor, distorting our decisions about the future, and we sometimes make decisions in the present that hurt our future self.
We often discount the value of a future reward, thinking that our present self needs it more than our future self will. We overestimate the importance of what’s happening in our lives right now, and that can lead us to act against how we ideally would.
In the absence of an immediate reward, we value the future and choose to be patient. But when a temptation is available now (or soon), we devalue the future much more. When choices are far away, we’re more likely to make the better one, but as the choice nears, we switch to whatever is most satisfying in the moment, like planning a healthy snack tonight, then reaching for junk food. There are three main explanations for why we’re such impulsive creatures:
- The future is uncertain. The present is a lot more certain than the distant future, where nothing is guaranteed. Our evolutionary success largely depended on taking the sure thing.
- We magnify our present-day emotions. We let ourselves feel like whatever is happening now is more important than anything that could happen in the future.
- Time rarely feels consistent. A block of time feels a lot longer in the present than it does a decade from now. The longer time feels, the harder it is to be patient.
Since we spend our lives in the present rather than the future, we overweight the present, leaving less weight, and less planning, for our futures. That leaves our future selves unprepared for their own present.
Poor trip planning
Procrastination doesn’t just put something off until tomorrow. It prioritizes our present self over a future self who, in all seriousness, won’t want to do the task either.
It’s as if we want to arrive at one particular version of the future, where we are happy, healthy and financially secure, but allow ourselves to go down a path that could land us somewhere very different.
One study showed that participants who felt more similarity and emotional connection to their future selves were the least likely to delay critical tasks they’d set out to do.
Procrastination is a battle between our past, present and future selves. It happens because of poor trip planning: our inability to consider our future selves in a deep and meaningful way. We tend to think our future feelings will be less substantial and less intense than the ones we have today.
Poor trip planning extends beyond simple tasks to future commitments. The “Yes/Damn” effect is when our present self commits our future self to something: “Yes, I’ll do that.” Then later: “Damn, I wish I hadn’t said yes.”
We tend to think our future self will have more free time than our present self, but when the time comes, that’s never the case. We’re bad at accurately predicting all the little, time-consuming things that make up our days. It may come down to balancing how much burden you want to take on against the opportunities that could come from it.
Packing the wrong clothes
Packing the wrong clothes is the mistake of relying too much on our present self’s feelings, by projecting them onto a future self who might not feel the same way.
This happens in two main ways: we use our current emotional state to make decisions for future selves who no longer feel the same way, and when we’re in a calmer state, we fail to appreciate the strong emotions our future selves might experience.
- Projection bias is our tendency to make decisions for the future based on our current emotions and drives, rather than the emotions and drives we’ll predictably be experiencing when those decisions take effect.
- The end-of-history illusion is recognizing that we’ve evolved from who we once were to who we are now, while failing to see that we’ll keep changing in the future.
Even though our tastes and preferences are always changing, we make decisions that affect our future self based on our present self, and only later have to grapple with the fact that a past self made important decisions that are affecting us now.
Part III: The landing
Solutions for smoothing the path between the present and the future.
Making the future closer
We connect more emotionally with a single, specific person than with a crowd. By getting to know our future self as a single, specific person, we can close the distance between them and our present self.
The well-being of our future selves ultimately depends on the decisions we make today.
To better understand this relationship, one study took a photo of each participant, digitized it, and ran it through an age-progression program. Half of the participants interacted with their present self in virtual reality, while the other half interacted with their aged, future self. The aim was to see whether interacting with a version of yourself creates a bias towards them.
Those who interacted with a future version of themselves allocated significantly more money to long-term savings than those who interacted with their present self.
Similar studies show similar results. Something as simple as an image that represents our future self can make us prioritize them more. This extends beyond our finances, to exercise, health care and even ethical behaviour. From savings to ethics to health, visualizing future you can create positive change.
An aging app alone doesn’t create change, though. To change our behaviour, we have to know that our future selves exist, and care about them. That keeps them top of mind, and enhances our ability to empathize with them. It can push us to live more intentionally. Time capsules, or writing letters to future you, can be effective ways to practise this.
We can also time travel in reverse: start where you want to end up in the future, and think back to where you are today. This can increase our sense of closeness to our future, leading us to take action today to take care of tomorrow. Simply by changing how we think about things, we can increase our chances of positive change.
Staying the course
There will be present selves who, despite our best wishes, make our lives look different from our hoped-for ideal. With a precommitment approach, we figure out exactly what will tempt our future selves, and build a plan that reinforces what we really want.
- Psychological commitments: stating in advance what you do or don’t want to do. They’ve been shown to promote the behaviour we hope for, but they need a sense of urgency or an incentive to act, otherwise they go unadopted. A deadline or an accountability system can provide that.
- Taking away options: removing undesirable behaviour from our day-to-day lives. We can remove distractions to be more productive, or remove easy access to long-term savings if we’re trying to grow wealth. By removing short-term temptations, we have a better chance of acting in our long-term interest.
- Adding penalties: on the extreme side, attaching appropriate consequences to bad behaviour. We may have the best of intentions, but our present self might find a way around them. Holding ourselves accountable with a short-term penalty can help us act in a way that benefits our future self.
We’re all human, after all, and we all give in to temptation even when we know it isn’t the best thing for us in the long run. Before we can boost our self-control, we need to recognize our failings.
Making the present easier
From the perspective of your present self, optimizing for your future is mostly downside: Present You makes the sacrifice, while Future You reaps the benefit. The unpleasant action happens now, for the promise of something better later.
Well-being isn’t only about chasing happiness; it’s about learning to find glimmers of joy and pleasure even in our more difficult moments. The true benefit of taking the good with the bad may not be instant, but something that unfolds gradually over time. By adding a measure of positive emotion to the negative, we make it easier to cope with life’s stressors, and push through difficult times in the present to better times in the future.
Making the big small means breaking a larger goal into smaller pieces, so present-day challenges feel easier. By making things feel smaller and more manageable, we avoid feeling overwhelmed, and can move towards a goal with less stress.
We also have to remember to celebrate the present. Saving everything for tomorrow while your present self suffers, and spending everything today so your future self suffers, are both bad strategies. There needs to be balance.
If we live only for tomorrow, we’ll deprive our future selves of the very memories and experiences and friends and family that help make life worth living.
The final way to make the present easier is to give in occasionally: to skip the sacrifice, and indulge in what makes us happy, even at some cost to building wealth. This can make not only tomorrow better, but today too.
Final thoughts
Your Future Self is a book you’re unlikely to see on many recommendation lists from financial planners. It doesn’t dive into investment strategies, historical returns or the next big thing. But what it does give us is something more important.
We often view saving for retirement as a Herculean task, so much so that many people give up before giving it a proper shot. But what if something as simple as how we view our future self could make us better investors? That’s exactly what this book shows us.
It shows us the importance of planning. Becoming more familiar with our future selves, by thinking about our ideal retirement age, lifestyle, expenses, hobbies and budget, can help us become more aligned with that version of ourselves. That makes it easier in the present to justify saving over spending, and for a lot of people, the issue with investing stems from an issue with saving (you can’t invest if you can’t save).
If you’re struggling to prioritize your future self over your present self, start by thinking more about who you want to be, and what you want your future to look like. As simple as it seems, it could be the change you need to start prioritizing your future, by making better financial decisions today.
All ideas, quotes and illustrations are borrowed from or based on Your Future Self by Hal Hershfield. To learn more, visit halhershfield.com.
