Your Future Self

How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

By: Hal Hershfield

Narrated by: Sean Pratt

Based on over a decade of research, psychologist Hal Hershfield explores how connecting with our future selves can both improve our lives right now and help us achieve our goals and hopes for the future.

We've all had the desire to travel through time and see what our lives will be like later in life. While we want the best possible future for ourselves, we often fail to make decisions that would truly make that a reality. Why do we choose steak over vegetables at dinner, waving off concerns about high cholesterol? Why do we splurge on luxury cars rather than save for retirement? Why can’t we stick to our exercise programs? Why are so many of us so disconnected from our future selves?

Based on over a decade of groundbreaking research, Your Future Self explains that, in our minds, our future selves often look like strangers. Many of us view the future as incredibly distant, making us more likely to opt for immediate gratification that disregards the health and wellbeing of ourselves in the years to come. People who are able to connect with their future selves, however, are better able to balance living for today and planning for tomorrow. Your Future Self presents the science, describes the mental mistakes we make in thinking about the future, and gives us practical advice for imagining our best future so that we can make that a reality.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Hal Hershfield (P)2023 Little, Brown Spark

Critic reviews

"Hershfield’s entertaining and powerful book tells us how thinking about the future can change our behavior in the present—and help us grow into the people we eventually want to be."—Carol Dweck, New York Times bestselling author of Mindset

"A timely idea from one of today's leading behavioral scientists. Your Future Self delivers on its promise, showing you how and why mental time travel makes your tomorrow better today! What's more, this book is both personal and thoroughly grounded in the latest research, much of which Hershfield has pioneered himself."—Angela Duckworth, New York Times bestselling author of Grit

"When you get to the last page of this fascinating book, your future self will thank you for having started it. An insightful and delightful examination of the strange journey we all make through time. Don’t leave the present without it!"—Daniel Gilbert, New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Happiness

Looking back is easy, looking ahead, is daunting!

This is an incredibly thought-provoking book that, at 73, I found incredibly timely. I believe that my “old self“ would have found it just as compelling at 23. One of the exercises I recently completed was creating an Excel spreadsheet with the first columnbeing years, beginning with this current year. Then, across the top, identified all the significant people in my life. And as the years progressed, I aged all the individuals. Well, that exercise was very enlightening, it took on a totally different meaning when I went back 10 years and realize how quickly things had changed in that period of time.

Impactful perspective, well delivered.

Compelling journey into all that has been and will be. At 70, I only wish this was written many years ago. Important for people to read this while they are young.

Balance the Present with the Future

Thought provoking book about balancing the present with the future. Glad I took the time to invest in my future self!

Excellent resource! Engaging, evidence based and practical.

A fun, well written, highly valuable read!
Author shares lots of stories to make concepts come to life. Thoughtfully summarizes research to make assessable and cuts to the “so what”.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in becoming a more effective decision maker and balancing YOLO with creating a bright future.

I read the book while also listening to the audible

My review of the performance:

I think, having had Prof. Hershfield when I attended UCLA, I kept expecting to hear his voice, so it took me a minute to hear a voice that sounded older but with all the same type of educated-but-cool writing voice. I get the feeling the actor actually took the time to read this and understand it before performing, because it sounds like someone is actually speaking to me. Lately, I feel like audible books all have performers who speak with patterned tones and inflections — I get bored. This is not the case here and thank God because this book deserves a good narrator!

Notes on the book (story) as taken from my review of the book:

A while back, I read some work that Prof. Hershfield had done about birthdays ending in 9's (I had just turned 39 and hit my mid-life crisis). I wasn't sure what this book would be about—finding contentment while reconciling a progressed identity with bionic arms or whatever technology the future brings—I had no clue. Perhaps that made this book even better; it was a subject matter I had not thought of since I was a kid, and adults would always ask me, "Hey, cutie, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The book starts off quite strong. I was sure it would be unable to keep up the initial momentum, like most books about self-concepts, but that was not the case. We went from establishing a core identity to cryogenic freezing, and it somehow made sense. This book was an adventure, and it keeps delivering because I have a future self I can think through for as long as I am alive. The amazement never ended!

Suppose you are having a bad day, month, year, hell, or just a lousy go of life. This book helps put things into an optimistic perspective and gives the reader a sense of control over the future. The type of action the book will inspire you to take is backed by outstanding research. I resigned from a position about 3 days into the book, realizing that the issue was not the job, it was me — that it did not align with future me in any way. I was on the wrong trajectory. This is the first time I have quit something and felt good about it!

Prof. Hershfield always seems to prove that life can have scary twists and turns, but it is fun if you know how to think and act through it. Let's go, Hershfield!

How to connect with your future self

Best takeaway: we don’t treat strangers well, and our future selves are mostly strangers. By making time and space for our future selves, a better present may be created as well.

Outstanding book

Great book, thoughtfully researched. Hal is a great and funny storyteller. Worthwhile read for people of any age

Thought provoking and fun

I really enjoyed the audio version of this book. The book itself unpacks the big concept that, because we often see our future selves as disconnected from our current, we make choices today that aren’t helpful to who we will become. The author weaves in anecdotes and relatable stories to drive home the research points. The narrator here is animated and engaging, and really kept my attention throughout. It was clear that he himself was familiar with the book and therefore made thoughtful choices in his narration to facilitate understanding the concepts. A fun and educational read - I highly recommend if you enjoy smart popular science books!

Your future self will thank you for reading this

An insightful and entertaining look at how so many of our misjudgments in life are time related.

A tough listen.

I used to like this sort of book. But it’s telling of scores of psychological studies, many using the college student subject method, makes me skeptical, especially because of the widespread fraud in this field of research
A few possibly helpful points are offered though. A brief summary will suit most better
It is longer than it needs to be