Your Future Self How to Make Tomorrow Better Today

by Hershfield, Hal

• ISBN13: 9780316421331
• ISBN10: 0316421332
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2025-03-01
• Publisher: Little, Brown Spark

Summary

Set your future self up for success with the “fascinating, profound, and immediately practical guide to shaping your life to come, while living more richly in the moment."―Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks

We've all had the desire to travel through time and see what our lives will be like later in life. But while we want the best possible future for ourselves, we often fail to make decisions that would truly make that version of the future 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 is the “entertaining and powerful book” (Carol Dweck, author of Mindset) that 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 our health and well-being 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. “Mind-boggling and soul-stirring” (Daniel H. Pink, author of The Power of Regret), Your Future Self describes the mental mistakes we make in thinking about the future and gives us practical advice for imagining our best future so we can make that vision a reality.

Author Biography

Hal Hershfield is a professor of marketing, behavioral decision‑making, and psychology at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, where he has won numerous awards for his teaching and research. His research on future selves has received widespread attention in outlets such as NPR, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and The Atlantic. Hershfield's research has been published in prestigious business, psychology, and general science academic journals, as well as in the Harvard Business Review, Scientific American, and Psychology Today.