How to Become Your “Future Self”
By: Benjamin Hardy
Tags: Self Improvement

If you look at your present and future selves as two different people, then your likelihood of making better decisions here and now will improve.

Why is this?

According to research done by Dr. Daniel Gilbert of Harvard, people are really bad at predicting who they will be in the future. The reason is simple: it’s far easier to remember the past than to imagine the future.

Because we don’t take the time to imagine the future, we assume that things will pretty much be the same in ten years as they are now. We even erroneously believe we will be the same person in ten years as we are right now. Gilbert and others call this The End of History Illusion, and what it means is this:

We recognize that we’ve gone through some big changes in our past

We see our current selves as the finished and evolved version of ourselves

We assume that in the future, we will mostly be who we are now

If you look back on who you were ten years ago, you will likely see some differences. You were probably in a different situation. You probably had different goals. You likely had different friends and hobbies. Of course, some of what you were doing is probably still the same as ten years ago.

As people get older, they tend to change less over ten year periods of time.

From age 15 to 25, you’re going to see some big change.

From 25 to 35, you’re likely to see some big changes as well.

But from 35 to 45, the rapidity of change tends to slow down for most people.

Why?

According to research on the Big 5 Factors of personality, as people age, they tend to become less and less open to new experiences. They stop seeking novelty and change. They stop imagining a bigger future. Their past becomes increasingly prevalent in predicting who they are and will be. Their life becomes increasingly routine.

Although routines are good for momentum, over time they are very bad for the brain. The brain thrives on novelty, newness, and challenge. As someone seeking rapid growth and progress in your life, you have to balance these two conflicts. You need routines to move forward, but your routines need to continually involve pushing beyond them. Your routine needs to be continually challenging yourself beyond what you’ve ever done before.

The only way to create confidence is by pursuing what you’ve never done before.

As Dan Sullivan, founder of Strategic Coach, said, “Personal confidence comes from making progress toward goals that are far bigger than your present capabilities.”

So, with that backdrop, it’s time to start imagining a bigger and better future. It’s time to stop attaching yourself so much to the person you think you are. It’s time to let go of the notion that your future self is going to be the same as your present self.

It’s just not true.

Your future self will be a different person regardless of effort and intention. Change is inevitable. Growth is optional. Moreover, as Dr. Gilbert explains, remembering is easier than imagining.

Albert Einstein said that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” So the question is, how much imagination are you willing to create in your life?

The rest of this article will provide five powerful strategies for imagining and creating your desired future:

Imagine Who You Want To Be In Three Years Feel, Deeply, What It Would Feel Like To Truly Be That Person Shift As Much In Your Current Life To Reflect Your Future Self Expect Everything, Attach To Nothing Measure The Gain, Not The Gap

Let’s start: