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 not breaking the law. They also report a greater sense of well-being, do better financially, and receive better grades in school.

This might feel a tad obvious when you think about it, and it’s such a simple technique that comes with mega rewards. But simple doesn’t mean easy, and it turns out we humans are quite terrible at considering our Future Selves.

In the New Scientist article, Marc Wittmann, a psychologist at the Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health in Freiburg, Germany, explains that “Overall, there’s a tendency for us all to be present-oriented.” The present feels more tangible and is often “bodily oriented,” meaning our decisions are more often driven by physical feelings and emotions such as fear or hunger rather than engaging in rational critical thinking. Meanwhile, the future feels more abstract.

Consider standard marketing techniques and even the news. Marketing is notorious for influencing people’s emotions because consumers are more likely to purchase in response to emotions rather than to carefully consider their purchases. Heck, HubSpot even offers a free “How-To” instructional manual to perfect the method. Likewise, journalists intentionally create headlines that lure people to click on them by using language that stimulates emotional reactions in readers.

Anyway, becoming stuck in the present is a big reason why we struggle to stick to diets or our New Year’s resolutions. Wittmann and his colleagues show this in their research — that when faced with a decision between immediate or delayed satisfaction, we more often choose the immediate option — even if choosing the delayed option includes a higher reward. They call this behavior “temporal discounting,” which basically means discounting our Future Selves and not considering them during decision-making.

The book also discusses research based on data from PET scans and fMRI machines, which indicate that certain regions within the brain’s cortex become more active when we think about ourselves than when we think about other people. Specifically, the medial prefrontal cortex — involved in self-reflection, memory, and emotional processing — and the rostral anterior cingulate cortex — part of the limbic system involved with learning, memory formation, and processing emotions.

The studies made Hershfield curious about what happens in the brain when we think about our Future Selves.

Study One

Hershfield and his colleagues instructed study participants to judge various words like “honorable” or “funny” and relate them to either their Present or Future Selves, or one of two actors (Natalie Portman or Matt Damon) while lying in an fMRI machine.

The researchers discovered less activity in the previously identified brain regions when the participants thought about their Future Selves compared to when they thought about themselves in the present. Thinking about their Future Self showed similar brain activity as when the participants thought about the celebrities, suggesting that our Future Selves can literally exist as strangers to our minds.

Of course, results varied with individual differences, mostly depending on the participant’s relationship with their Future Self. The team found that the more disconnected someone felt from their Future Self, the more likely they were to engage in temporal discounting later.

Study Two

Later on, Hershfield and his colleagues ran a series of experiments involving virtual reality programs, in which participants met either their normal, Present Day Selves or their Future Selves, which were artificial images of themselves aged up — including grey hair, wrinkles, and age spots. Afterward, the participants were asked questions, including what they’d do if given $1000 on the spot.

Those who interacted with their future selves were “significantly” more likely to say they’d save money than those who saw their Present Selves. Wittman believes this is because seeing their Future Self makes the concept less abstract and more tangible, encouraging empathy toward their Future Self and, therefore, also their Present Self.

Have Some Compassion for Yourselves

Hershfield and other research experts on the topic discovered some behavioral patterns and personality characteristics between people with strong or poor relationships with their Future Selves.

Procrastination is perhaps the most significant sign that someone is disconnected. In the New Scientist article, a psychologist at the University of Durham, in the UK, Fuschia Sirois, explains:

“People who are prone to procrastination prioritise feeling good now over pushing through emotional difficulties around a task to accomplish something their future selves can enjoy.” […] “There’s a whole emotional dynamic that happens after people procrastinate. You start to feel bad, experiencing shame and guilt, and that drives further procrastination.”

Research, including Sirois’, shows that procrastinators often struggle with negative emotions and thinking about the future. Procrastination is also linked to mental and physical health issues.

Thankfully, procrastination is a mindset, and that means it’s not permanent. There are ways to train your brain toward more positive thinking patterns that encourage beneficial behaviors which can transform a person’s life.

On the flip side, increasing your self-compassion is one of the most impactful ways to bring about this shift. Research shows, perhaps ironically, that those with compassion for themselves don’t usually feel as guilty about procrastinating — but instead of procrastinating more, they do it less.

Hershfield and his colleagues also discovered that people who maintain relationships with their Future Selves are “more likely to be humble and behave in an ethically responsible way.”

Perspective Shift

This research might be just what we need right now, both individually and socially, especially considering decades of not thinking about the future have led us to face some of our current catastrophes like Global Warming. Of course, there is such a thing as overthinking about your Future Self, which is also why self-compassion is so important. The goal is to balance enjoying the moment with caring for your future.

Considering what your Future Self will need, whether to get a jump start on that project or wash the dirty dishes before bed, creates tiny ripples of positive change in your life. After all, who better to have your back and support you than you?

Doing so can create a positive feedback loop because doing things now that you know you’ll appreciate later makes you feel good later when you don’t have to do whatever task it is. And that leads you to want to help your Future Self again. Changing the way we think isn’t easy. It takes commitment, consistency, and loads of self-compassion, but gosh, it’s totally worth it.