Coaching practices for Future Value Spending Decision
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Future Value Spending Decision, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- Every payday I tell myself I’ll set some aside, and every payday it’s gone before I get around to it
- When I picture myself a year or ten years out, it’s like thinking about a stranger I don’t really owe anything to
- The version of me who’d benefit from saving feels like a stranger I owe nothing to
- I’m about to drop a chunk of money on something I’m sure will make me happy, but I’m only picturing that one purchase
- A few dollars a day on some little habit feels like nothing in the moment, so I never connect it to anything
Practices that may help
- Automate future-self allocations at a moment of patience
Set up automatic transfers or pre-blocked time when you’re in a patient state — remove the future-self decision from present-self’s hands.
Hyperbolic Discounting — Why Future You Always Gets the Short End - Make your future self vivid to reduce psychological distance
Write to your future self or imagine a specific day in your desired future — temporal distance amplifies present bias; vividness reduces it.
Hyperbolic Discounting — Why Future You Always Gets the Short End - Make the future self vivid and concrete
A vivid, detailed image of your future self competes more effectively with the present temptation.
The Marshmallow Test and Your Money - Apply the "value per dollar" test to major purchases
Before a large purchase, ask how much wellbeing per dollar this generates relative to alternatives at the same cost.
Values-Based Spending, Made Practical - Calculate the opportunity cost of a recurring habit
Convert any regular expense into its 10-, 20-, and 30-year invested value.
The Latte Factor: Small Spending and the Cost of Habit - The seventh-generation test for decisions
Before a major choice, ask how it will affect people seven generations from now.
The Good Ancestor: Long-Path Thinking for a Meaningful Life - Filter decisions through "what would future me thank me for?"
Before significant decisions, ask whether your future self will be grateful or resentful.
Future Self Continuity, Made Practical - Future Self Continuity, Made Practical
Hal Hershfield’s research shows that most people experience their future self as a stranger — neurologically similar to perceiving another person rather than themselves. This psychological distance explains impulsive decisions that trade future wellbeing for present comfort. Practices that increase felt connection to the future self reduce this discounting and improve decisions ranging from saving to health behavior. - Use the 10-year horizon as a regret test
Ask: in 10 years, will I regret not doing this more than doing it?
The 10-10-10 Rule - Project to age 80 and look back
Ask which choice your 80-year-old self will least regret.
The Regret-Minimization Framework
Related concerns
- Future Descendants Exercise
Write a letter addressed to someone in your family line two or three generations ahead.
Write a letter to your future descendants
- Future Self Continuity At Work
Hal Hershfield’s research shows that most people experience their future self as a stranger — neurologically similar to perceiving another person rather than themselves. This psychological distance explains impulsive decisions that trade future wellbeing for present comfort. Practices that increase felt connection to the future self reduce this discounting and improve decisions ranging from saving to health behavior.
- Future Self Continuity On A Budget
Hal Hershfield’s research shows that most people experience their future self as a stranger — neurologically similar to perceiving another person rather than themselves. This psychological distance explains impulsive decisions that trade future wellbeing for present comfort. Practices that increase felt connection to the future self reduce this discounting and improve decisions ranging from saving to health behavior.
- Future Self Continuity When Starting Out
Hal Hershfield’s research shows that most people experience their future self as a stranger — neurologically similar to perceiving another person rather than themselves. This psychological distance explains impulsive decisions that trade future wellbeing for present comfort. Practices that increase felt connection to the future self reduce this discounting and improve decisions ranging from saving to health behavior.
- Future Self Decisions
Hal Hershfield’s research shows that most people experience their future self as a stranger — neurologically similar to perceiving another person rather than themselves. This psychological distance explains impulsive decisions that trade future wellbeing for present comfort. Practices that increase felt connection to the future self reduce this discounting and improve decisions ranging from saving to health behavior.
- Future Self Visualization Money
A vivid, detailed image of your future self competes more effectively with the present temptation.
Make the future self vivid and concrete
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