Hal Hershfield Future Self Continuity: 10 Evidence-Based Coaching Practices
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Hal Hershfield Future Self Continuity, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
About 2 minutes
Try it here: write a note to your future self
Future you can feel like a stranger, and writing to them makes the future feel closer and more personal.
Write a short note to yourself one year from now.
Practices that may help
- 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. - 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 - Journal to your future self weekly
Writing regularly to a named future self builds the relationship and makes future wellbeing feel personal.
Future Self Continuity, Made Practical - 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 - Vividly visualize your future self in concrete detail
The more specific and sensory your image of your future self, the less you discount their wellbeing.
Future Self Continuity, Made Practical - Write a letter from your future self
Have your 80-year-old self write back about the decision you’re facing now.
The Regret-Minimization Framework - Consult your future self
Imagine your wiser future self looking back on this moment, and ask what they’d want you to do.
Self-Distancing: Thinking Clearly About Your Own Problems - Identify the other things that will also be true of your future life
Focalism makes future events seem bigger than they are by ignoring all the other things that will still be present.
Affect Forecasting: Why You Mispredicted How You’d Feel - Write a letter from your future self to your present self
Ask your 70-year-old self to write back to you now — with gratitude or regret.
Future Self Continuity, Made Practical - The future life line
Extend your timeline forward and sketch the peaks and turning points you want to create — then work backward to today.
The Life Line Exercise
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- When I picture myself a year or ten years out, it’s like thinking about a stranger I don’t really owe anything to
- My future self only crosses my mind in the rare big moment and then vanishes again
- I’m standing at a real fork right now and going in circles
- When I try to picture myself old it’s just a blank, fuzzy outline
- I’ve tried that "imagine your future self" thing but the older me stays a vague stranger I feel nothing for, so it changes nothing
Related concerns
- Future Self Continuity
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.
- Connect To Future Self
Writing regularly to a named future self builds the relationship and makes future wellbeing feel personal.
Journal to your future self weekly
- Future Person Thinking
Ask your 70-year-old self to write back to you now — with gratitude or regret.
Write a letter from your future self to your present self
- Future Perspective Self Awareness
Ask your 70-year-old self to write back to you now — with gratitude or regret.
- Future Self
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 As A Parent
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.
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