It’s easy to assume that the struggle to make career decisions — especially difficult ones — is mainly about external constraints: time, money, opportunity, or uncertainty.
But there’s another factor, backed by robust behavioural science, that makes these choices harder than they need to be: we don’t feel emotionally connected to the people we’ll become in the future.
This is the focus of research by Hal Hershfield, a behavioural scientist at UCLA. His studies explore how people think about — and relate to — their future selves, and how that relationship shapes our motivation, decision-making, and behaviour.
Why the future feels like someone else’s problem
Hershfield’s work shows that, at a neurological level, we often treat our future self like a stranger. When people are asked to picture themselves 10 or 20 years from now, their brain activity looks more like when they think about another person than when they think about their current self.
This matters because when our future self feels distant or abstract, we’re more likely to:
delay important decisions
avoid change
prioritise short-term comfort over long-term growth.
It’s not just a lack of motivation — it’s a disconnect between the self that acts now and the self that will live with the consequences.
Across both neuroscience and behavioural studies, Hershfield and colleagues have found that when people feel more psychologically continuous with their future selves — when they see their future as a natural extension of who they are today — they’re more likely to make long-term, values-aligned decisions, even in the face of uncertainty.
Reconnecting with your future self
The good news is: that connection can be strengthened. Hershfield and colleagues found that even small interventions — like vividly imagining your life a few years from now, or writing to your future self — can change how you make decisions.
This is especially helpful in moments where the outcome of a decision is uncertain. For example, deciding whether to stay in a stable but stressful role or pursue something new.
The risks of action are usually clear and immediate. The benefits of change are often less certain — and they belong to someone you haven’t fully imagined yet.
A simple reflective practice
One way to apply this insight is to write a short letter to your future self — imagining your life three years from now.
Try to picture your future circumstances vividly and specifically:
Where are you?
What are you doing?
What matters to you most?
It isn’t about trying to predict a perfect outcome. It’s about strengthening your connection to the version of you who will build a life around today’s decisions — so you can make braver, more values-aligned choices now.
References
Hershfield, H. E. (2023). Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. Little, Brown Spark.
Hershfield, H. E. (2011). Future self-continuity: How conceptions of the future self transform intertemporal choice. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1235(1), 30–43.
