You 2.0: Your Future Is Now

Visual Imagery

Visual imagery plays a crucial role in making our future selves more relatable and concrete. Hal Hershfield explains that using age-progressed images can help individuals feel a stronger connection to their future selves, leading to better long-term decisions like saving more money 1. This technique has been shown to increase motivation and financial literacy among students who viewed these images regularly 2. Hershfield emphasizes the importance of seeing the big picture, or taking a "bird's eye view," to balance present and future needs effectively 3.

If I can get you to really vividly think about your future self, and I can get you to identify with that person, well, now, all of a sudden, it's much easier to start saying, you know, the things that I'm doing right now are going to impact not just some sort of perfectly abstract stranger, but somebody who may share things in common with me.

--- Hal Hershfield

By making future selves more vivid, we can foster a closer relationship with them, ultimately leading to better decision-making.

   

Narrative Techniques

Narrative techniques, such as storytelling and personal narratives, can deepen our connection with future selves. Hershfield highlights research where students wrote letters to their future selves and received responses from them, enhancing their sense of continuity and responsibility 4. This exercise encourages individuals to step into their future selves' shoes, fostering empathy and long-term planning. Shankar Vedantam notes that forming connections with future selves is akin to building friendships, where repeated interactions strengthen bonds 5.

If we start to think about how we relate to our future selves as if they're other people, then it can start to shed some light on why we sometimes act in these ways that may seem short-sighted.

--- Hal Hershfield

By treating future selves as familiar figures, we can enhance our motivation to make choices that benefit them.