Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

by Hal Hershfield Narrated by Sean Pratt

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

AUGUST 2023 - AudioFile

What is your relationship with your future self? And how does that impact your decisions in the present? These are some of the intriguing questions that psychologist and professor Hershfield explores in depth and that narrator Sean Pratt delivers with appropriate clarity, gravitas, and occasional humor. Pratt conveys Hershfield's enthusiasm for his topic and keeps listeners engaged while sharing extensive research and descriptions of the many experiments described, including the use of virtual reality and age-progression technologies. Hershfield illustrates his key points with interesting examples and stories, and provides suggestions for practical ways to apply the lessons learned. To enhance the experience, listeners might find it helpful to slightly increase playing speed and to have the accompanying pdf handy for specific references. E.Q. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

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

“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

“Who doesn’t want to grow? To have a better future? Fascinating and illuminating, Your Future Self shows us how to get there. It’s certain to shift the ways we live—right now and beyond.”—Jonah Berger, New York Times bestselling author of Contagious, Invisible Influence, and The Catalyst

“As a pioneering psychologist, Hal Hershfield’s research has changed how I think about the future, and he’s about to do the same for you. His book offers a fascinating window into who you might become tomorrow—and how you can have more say in that evolution today. Your future self will be grateful that you read it.”—Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Again and host of the TED podcast Re:Thinking

"A fascinating, profound, and immediately practical guide to shaping your life to come, while living more richly in the moment. I fully expect future versions of myself to thank me for reading it."—Oliver Burkeman, New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Weeks

“An encouraging, practical guide for decision-making.”—Kirkus Reviews

“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

"Your Future Self is at once mind-boggling and soul-stirring. Hal Hershfield makes complex science come alive — while also delivering practical tips to close the gap between who we are today and who we can become tomorrow. This is the rare book that will change whom you see in the mirror.”—Daniel H. Pink, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Regret

“Humans are funny creatures. We know what we need to do to take care of our future selves—eat less, save more, floss—and yet we fail to do them consistently. Hal Hershfield offers an entertaining guide to getting out of our own way that's rooted in science but full of practical ways to change.”—Jean Chatzky, author of Women with Money and CEO of HerMoney.com

“I can’t recommend the book more highly, especially because the author’s exceptional use of narrative gives this behavioral science volume a surprising page-turner quality.”—Tim Maurer, Forbes

“Your Future Self is filled with actionable methods, backed by his own and other academics’ research, and with a generous understanding of what it means to be a human, facing the future, right now.”—Carla Fried, UCLA Anderson Review

Jonah Berger

Who doesn’t want to grow? To have a better future? Fascinating and illuminating, Your Future Self shows us how to get there. It’s certain to shift the ways we live—right now and beyond.

#1 New York Times bestselling author of The Power Daniel H. Pink

Your Future Self is at once mind-boggling and soul-stirring. Hal Hershfield makes complex science come alive — while also delivering practical tips to close the gap between who we are today and who we can become tomorrow. This is the rare book that will change whom you see in the mirror.

New York Times bestselling author of Grit Angela Duckworth

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.

New York Times bestselling author of Mindset Carol Dweck

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.

author of Women with Money and CEO of HerMoney.com Jean Chatzky

Humans are funny creatures. We know what we need to do to take care of our future selves—eat less, save more, floss—and yet we fail to do them consistently. Hal Hershfield offers an entertaining guide to getting out of our own way that's rooted in science but full of practical ways to change.

New York Times bestselling author of Four Thousand Oliver Burkeman

A fascinating, profound, and immediately practical guide to shaping your life to come, while living more richly in the moment. I fully expect future versions of myself to thank me for reading it.

#1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Agai Adam Grant

As a pioneering psychologist, Hal Hershfield’s research has changed how I think about the future, and he’s about to do the same for you. His book offers a fascinating window into who you might become tomorrow—and how you can have more say in that evolution today. Your future self will be grateful that you read it.

author of Rebel Talent Francesca Gino

Immensely insightful and remarkably engaging, Your Future Self is sure to change the current and future lives of many for the better.

New York Times bestselling author of Stumbling on Daniel Gilbert

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!

Library Journal

06/01/2023

People tend to make decisions based on how they feel and what they want in the present moment, but those choices may not ultimately be the most beneficial. Here Hershfield (marketing and psychology, UCLA) posits that there is another way to think about decision-making: to raise the question of one's future self. Although people tend to see their future selves as separate from the person they are now, Hershfield suggests that considering the future in a more thoughtful, nuanced way can help us make decisions that will be good for both versions of ourselves. The book discusses these ideas and related scholarly studies in a clear and accessible way. Readers interested in the psychology of choice may find this book particularly compelling. VERDICT A comprehensive and mindful discussion of decision making that's designed to benefit readers' current and future selves. Recommended for libraries where there is interest in psychology or self-help.—Amber Gray

AUGUST 2023 - AudioFile

What is your relationship with your future self? And how does that impact your decisions in the present? These are some of the intriguing questions that psychologist and professor Hershfield explores in depth and that narrator Sean Pratt delivers with appropriate clarity, gravitas, and occasional humor. Pratt conveys Hershfield's enthusiasm for his topic and keeps listeners engaged while sharing extensive research and descriptions of the many experiments described, including the use of virtual reality and age-progression technologies. Hershfield illustrates his key points with interesting examples and stories, and provides suggestions for practical ways to apply the lessons learned. To enhance the experience, listeners might find it helpful to slightly increase playing speed and to have the accompanying pdf handy for specific references. E.Q. © AudioFile 2023, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

2023-03-22
How to act on your own behalf.

Hershfield, a psychologist and professor of marketing, offers thoughtful, research-based guidance about making decisions in the present to create a better future for yourself. “If you were able to sit down and have a conversation with your future self,” he asks, “what would you say, and what would happen as a result?” Marshaling abundant anecdotes, hypothetical scenarios, and findings from social science research, the author asserts that often we use “the emotional states of our current selves to make decisions for future selves who will no longer feel the same way.” Instead, we must recognize that our future self may have different needs and perspectives from our present self. Everyone changes over time. Rather than there being “a central self at our core,” Hershfield has found from his own research that each individual is “an aggregation of separate, distinct selves.” When we become “overly anchored on present-day concerns,” though, we imagine that a future self will feel exactly the same way as we do now. The author suggests that connecting with a vividly imagined future self can make us more likely to act on that future self’s behalf—by saving more for retirement, for example, or by choosing a healthy diet and exercising. Some strategies to help make that connection include writing a letter to a future self or looking at age-progressed images. “In a variety of ways,” he writes, “we see our distant selves as if they are other people. What matters is the relationships we have with those other people.” When deciding whether to commit to some future activity, we should weigh “how much burden and stress” the activity may create against the positive opportunities that may arise from the experience. To help achieve our goals, Hershfield proposes assorted commitment devices to help us follow a desired course of action and overcome undermining behavior.

An encouraging, practical guide for decision-making.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176951806
Publisher:	Hachette Audio
Publication date:	06/06/2023
Edition description:	Unabridged

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