Become Friends with Your Future Self

Researchers have discovered doing so creates monumental positive influences over the choices we make.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

I’ve maintained a regular journaling habit since I was nine years old. My entries are a lot like my articles, actually. They’re styled as a sort of letter. Except instead of to you, I write to my Future Self as if she’s a good friend whose known me my whole life, but I haven’t met her yet. A few years ago, I even kept a notebook listing all the daily decisions I made that my Future Self would thank me for.

This habit exponentially improved my mental health at the time, and while I knew the benefits were real, I never thought about the neuroscience behind it. Until I read this article recently by New Scientist. The article discusses extensive research by Hal Hershfield, a professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, which he includes in his recently published book, Your Future Self.

Considering Our Future Selves

In the book, Hershfield shows that feeling close to your Future Self and acknowledging that your Future Self may differ from your Present Self has life-changing benefits. His research demonstrates many examples that doing so leads people to make better life decisions — like developing an exercise routine or…