A few weeks ago, I read this piece that advocates learning to trust your future self as a way to be effective in making life changes.
The premise is that our brains are wired to prioritize rewards in the near future versus those that take longer to obtain. Good news: It’s possible to circumvent this so that we’re not always slaves to immediate gratification. Researcher George Ainslie identified that our brains can ‘bundle’ benefits that we expect to receive to help us hold out for the delayed rewards; we’re “mentally projecting [ourselves] into the future so [we] can experience the satisfaction of tomorrow’s rewards today”.
What’s tricky, however, is trusting that our future self will act the way we’d like him or her to in order to actually get the reward bundle. For me, the “aha” moment of the piece was the recommendation to “establish a pattern of evidence for your own brain to observe” regarding following through on the incredibly simple, fail-proof rule you set for yourself. In essence, you’re building credibility with yourself to become confident that the future you will do what you need him or her to in order to achieve that lovely bundle of long-term rewards. Simple? Seemingly. Easy? Time to give it a try.