Want to make better new year’s resolutions? Talk to this person
Last time, I talked about identifying what we say no to as part of our New Year’s Resolutions, but now I want to talk to you about how you actually realize your resolutions.
So who’s this person you need to talk to to make better resolutions?
It’s you. But in the future.
SO WHAT DO WE KNOW?
There’s a concept called temporal discounting where people are more likely to focus on immediate rewards over future rewards. In other words, I want to focus on eating a healthier diet, but the breakfast croffles on your morning commute are there NOW. I need to pay off debt but the latest phone is out NOW.
To combat temporal discounting, many psychologists believed that you had to either make the current reward seem less appealing or heighten the importance of the future reward. But another interesting way that conveniently did both was thinking about your future self.
What researchers find is that when we can’t connect with our future selves, we often make bad decisions. But there are ways to increase this connection.
Researchers have manipulated the current-future self connection in different ways:
- Writing a letter to your future self (and another intervention with high school students where they wrote a letter to their future self and then wrote a response as their future self)
- Writing about the legacy you leave for future generations
- Having participants talk to an aged avatar of themselves in VR
- Seeing an age progression photo of oneself
- Highlighting where your current and future self already overlap
- Envision possible future outcomes
- Write down 2 reasons your identity would remain stable over a 12 month period
Getting in touch with your future self has been shown to:
- Increased retirement saving allocation
- Reduce delinquency in high school students (they made better cost-benefit decisions), spend more time on homework, and get better grades
- Improve sustainability behaviors
- Improve altruistic behavior
- Reduce impulsive purchasing
SO WHAT…
Ways to get in touch with future you:
- Write a letter to future you. This could be a nice annual exercise that you can revisit at the beginning of each new year. Write to your future self (is this you at the end of 2024? Or beyond?), what are you going to do for this future self? What do you hope will happen this year? What do you hope for your future self? Bonus points — reread your letter at the end of the year — are you grateful for your past self’s decisions?
- Write a letter AS future you. What would your future self ask of the current you? What advice would your future self give to current you?
- Use the aging filter on some popular social media apps. You may know some of those scary accurate looking age filters already (or hunt down Gen Z, they’ll show you how old you look). Using AR is more accessible than ever before. With this filter, look at your “future self”, or better yet, have a conversation with your future self. What does this person say? What would they be thanking present-day you for?
- Visualize your future self. Write it down, make a mood board, create a keepsake — what does your life look like? What are you doing? What kind of lifestyle do you have? Where do you live? What do you look like? What activities are you doing? Outline the details to make this feel as real as possible.
- What would future-self thank me for? If you aren’t sure what to do, ask this question, this is your 2024 mantra.
- Your future self can give perspective. Problems now always seem bigger. But your future self will often help you rightsize situations. Right now this problem is my whole world, but future self reassures you that you survive and it isn’t the whole world.
- Make decisions for your future self that reduce temptations of immediate rewards that a current you would give into. This can include things like buying a non-refundable ticket so you can’t back out of a vacation at the last minute or eliminating all your unhealthy snacks (or stocking the pantry with only healthy snacks) so that future hungry you is forced to make better choices.
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
- Bartels, D. M., & Urminsky, O. (2011). On intertemporal selfishness: How the perceived instability of identity underlies impatient consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 38, 182–198.
- Chishima, Y., & Wilson, A. E. (2021). Conversation with a future self: A letter-exchange exercise enhances student self-continuity, career planning, and academic thinking. Self and Identity, 20(5), 646–671.
- Hershfield, H. E., Goldstein, D. G., Sharpe, W. F., Fox, J., Yeykelis, L., Carstensen, L. L., & Bailenson, J. N. (2011). Increasing saving behavior through age-progressed renderings of the future self. Journal of marketing research, 48(SPL), S23-S37.
- Nurra, C., & Oyserman, D. (2018). From future self to current action: An identity-based motivation perspective. Self and Identity, 17, 343–364.
- Oyserman, D., Bybee, D., & Terry, K. (2006). Possible selves and academic outcomes: How and when possible selves impel action. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 91, 188–204.
- Pronin, E., Olivola, C. Y., & Kennedy, K. A. (2008). Doing unto future selves as you would do unto others: Psychological distance and decision making. Personality and social psychology bulletin, 34(2), 224–236.
- Van Gelder, J. L., Luciano, E. C., Weulen Kranenbarg, M., & Hershfield, H. E. (2015). Friends with my future self: Longitudinal vividness intervention reduces delinquency. Criminology, 53(2), 158–179.
- Zaval, L., Markowitz, E. M., & Weber, E. U. (2015). How will I be remembered? Conserving the environment for the sake of one’s legacy. Psychological Science, 26, 231–236.
WHO IS PSY.KO?
PsykoBabble is a curation of some of my favorite psych concepts and also the latest and greatest in the realms of social psychology. Why? I have a PhD in cultural and digital psychology — this newsletter helps me stay on top of a field I love so much, share what I’ve found, and constantly push psychology’s application to life and work in meaningful ways.
