Coaching practices for How to Explain the Concept of Past Future to a Kid
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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
- I want to put into words, for a great-grandchild I’ll never meet, what kind of world I’m handing them and what I’m actually trying to do about it
- I keep choosing the easy thing now over the thing my future self would thank me for
- I can almost hear my older self looking back at the choices I’m making right now, and I’m scared it’s with regret
- 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
Practices that may help
- 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 - Write a letter to your future descendants
Write a letter addressed to someone in your family line two or three generations ahead.
The Good Ancestor: Long-Path Thinking for a Meaningful Life - Build a vivid, concrete future orientation
Make the future feel real and close by describing it in sensory, specific detail.
Time Perspective Therapy - 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 - 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 - Write vivid imagined future scenes
Extend your life story into the future with specific, felt scenes — not just goals.
Narrative Identity, Made Practical - Shrink the felt distance to the future reward
We discount distant rewards steeply — so make the future payoff feel closer and concrete.
Delayed Gratification, Made Practical - 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 - 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 - 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
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 Perspective Self Awareness
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 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.
- Future Self Continuity With My Team
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 Perspective
Ask your 70-year-old self to write back to you now — with gratitude or regret.
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