In Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today, publishing June 6, 2023, UCLA Anderson Professor of Marketing and Behavioral Decision Making Hal Hershfield observes that while we all want the best possible future for ourselves, we often fail to make decisions that help us realize it.

Based on more than a decade of research, Your Future Self explains that many of us view the future as incredibly distant, making us likelier to opt for immediate gratification that disregards the health and well-being of ourselves in the years to come. “We’re estranged from the people we become,” says Hershfield. “We don’t know our future selves so we end up messing up life for them constantly.”

So, what if you could meet your future self? Through a VR mirror, Hershfield introduced subjects to their older, future selves. He found that people who connect their current selves with the person they will become in the future are better able to balance living for today and planning for tomorrow.

Asking questions like “Why do we splurge on luxury cars rather than save for retirement?” and “Why can’t we stick to our exercise programs?” 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 it a reality.

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