Hal Hershfield – Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

Emotional Balance Sheet with Paul Fenner

Have you ever looked into the mirror to give your future self the time it deserves?

Hal Hershfield is a social psychologist whose research focuses on decision making. As a professor of marketing and behavioral decision making at UCLA's Anderson School of Management, he has an interdisciplinary approach to understanding how people make their decisions.

In his new book, Your Future Self, Hal delves into the philosophy and psychology of how we perceive ourselves over time, identifying three common time travel mistakes and offering practical techniques to bring the future closer. We discuss the importance of considering our present and future decisions, taking small steps towards future goals, and avoiding overloading ourselves in the present.

Three takeaways

1. Research shows that people who feel a sense of similarity with their future selves tend to be more satisfied with their lives 10 years later.
2. Decisions regarding trade-offs such as buying an expensive car or taking out a bigger mortgage impact us through time, and the more connected we feel towards our future selves, the more likely we are to make decisions that will benefit us in the future.
3. Our future self becomes more vivid as we get older, especially as we approach mid-life. For parents, every year is a transition, and every stage of parenting is tied to them, causing you to think more about your future self in relation to your children's future.

This episode provides practical techniques for bringing the future closer and making present sacrifices feel easier

“If we start thinking about investments of time, rather than expenditures, maybe we’ll start focusing on allocating time toward the things that are more closely linked to our longer-term well-being,”

Please enjoy my conversation with Hal Hershfield.

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