Your Future Self

How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

De: Hal Hershfield

Narrado por: Sean Pratt

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.

Reseñas de la Crítica

“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

“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

Impactful perspective, well delivered.

Compelling journey into all that has been and will be. At 70, I only wish this was written many years ago. Important for people to read this while they are young.

A tough listen.

I used to like this sort of book. But it’s telling of scores of psychological studies, many using the college student subject method, makes me skeptical, especially because of the widespread fraud in this field of research
A few possibly helpful points are offered though. A brief summary will suit most better
It is longer than it needs to be

A must read for anyone interested in understanding why they make the decisions they do and how to improve their lives.

This book was an excellent deep dive into better understanding why we make the decisions we do and how to improve our lives through better decision-making. The author provides excellent real world examples to illustrate our decision-making process and to show how we can improve that to live a better and more fulfilled life. This is a must read for all ages!

Balance the Present with the Future

Thought provoking book about balancing the present with the future. Glad I took the time to invest in my future self!

Looking back is easy, looking ahead, is daunting!

This is an incredibly thought-provoking book that, at 73, I found incredibly timely. I believe that my “old self“ would have found it just as compelling at 23. One of the exercises I recently completed was creating an Excel spreadsheet with the first columnbeing years, beginning with this current year. Then, across the top, identified all the significant people in my life. And as the years progressed, I aged all the individuals. Well, that exercise was very enlightening, it took on a totally different meaning when I went back 10 years and realize how quickly things had changed in that period of time.

Could have been a pamphlet

Lots and lots of narrative and a few cute anecdotes in which is buried a few interesting and helpful nuggets, but don’t expect a helpfully organized list of actions you can actually start using. Have to glean such help for yourself; then, in the end, for his grand finale, instead of a helpful summary and rousing send off, you get lectured about climate change because he’s still naive enough to believe it’s actually a threat. Really disappointed as it starts decently, but then meanders like a diary. Oh well.

Excellent resource! Engaging, evidence based and practical.

A fun, well written, highly valuable read!
Author shares lots of stories to make concepts come to life. Thoughtfully summarizes research to make assessable and cuts to the “so what”.
Highly recommended for anyone interested in becoming a more effective decision maker and balancing YOLO with creating a bright future.

I read the book while also listening to the audible

My review of the performance:

I think, having had Prof. Hershfield when I attended UCLA, I kept expecting to hear his voice, so it took me a minute to hear a voice that sounded older but with all the same type of educated-but-cool writing voice. I get the feeling the actor actually took the time to read this and understand it before performing, because it sounds like someone is actually speaking to me. Lately, I feel like audible books all have performers who speak with patterned tones and inflections — I get bored. This is not the case here and thank God because this book deserves a good narrator!

Notes on the book (story) as taken from my review of the book:

A while back, I read some work that Prof. Hershfield had done about birthdays ending in 9's (I had just turned 39 and hit my mid-life crisis). I wasn't sure what this book would be about—finding contentment while reconciling a progressed identity with bionic arms or whatever technology the future brings—I had no clue. Perhaps that made this book even better; it was a subject matter I had not thought of since I was a kid, and adults would always ask me, "Hey, cutie, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

The book starts off quite strong. I was sure it would be unable to keep up the initial momentum, like most books about self-concepts, but that was not the case. We went from establishing a core identity to cryogenic freezing, and it somehow made sense. This book was an adventure, and it keeps delivering because I have a future self I can think through for as long as I am alive. The amazement never ended!

Suppose you are having a bad day, month, year, hell, or just a lousy go of life. This book helps put things into an optimistic perspective and gives the reader a sense of control over the future. The type of action the book will inspire you to take is backed by outstanding research. I resigned from a position about 3 days into the book, realizing that the issue was not the job, it was me — that it did not align with future me in any way. I was on the wrong trajectory. This is the first time I have quit something and felt good about it!

Prof. Hershfield always seems to prove that life can have scary twists and turns, but it is fun if you know how to think and act through it. Let's go, Hershfield!

How to connect with your future self

Best takeaway: we don’t treat strangers well, and our future selves are mostly strangers. By making time and space for our future selves, a better present may be created as well.

Outstanding book

Great book, thoughtfully researched. Hal is a great and funny storyteller. Worthwhile read for people of any age