commitment devices

As you move through time, you exist as a present self who makes decisions, an in-between self who should carry out those decisions, and a future self who will benefit from those decisions. Yet as we all know, in-between self often fails to follow through on what present self resolves, leaving future self pretty bummed out.

The solution to this dilemma, my guest says, is for your present self to become much better friends with your future self.

His name is Hal Hershfield, and he's a professor of marketing, behavioral decision making, and psychology, and the author of Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today. Hal and I spend the first part of our conversation taking a really interesting philosophical dive into what the self even is. We talk about why our future self can feel like a stranger, why it's hard to know what he'll be like, and what this dilemma has to do with becoming a vampire. We then discuss how building a stronger connection with your future self makes your present self more willing to help him, and how you can become closer to your future self by engaging in mental time traveling. Hal shares a couple techniques that can facilitate this mental time travel, three mistakes people make in taking this cognitive trip, and how to start making tomorrow better today.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• "The Self Is Moral" by Nina Strohminger
• Transformative Experience by L. A. Paul
• Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson on writing a letter to and from your future self
• The End-of-History Illusion
• stickK.com
• AoM Podcast #731: A Futurist’s Guide to Building the Life You Want

Connect With Hal Hershfield

• Hal's Website

There's no shortage of information out there on how to change — how to lose weight, exercise more, curb your anger, quit smoking, and every other kind of habit someone might want to pick up or drop.

But despite this avalanche of information, you're probably struggling to change just as much as you ever did.

What you need is an actual strategy — to identify what particular barrier is keeping you from a particular goal, and a specific solution to that specific roadblock.

My guest is well-positioned to help you cut through the voluminous noise around personal change and hone in on both sides of this equation. Her name is Katy Milkman, and she's a Wharton professor who's spent her career studying behavioral economics and the author of How to Change: The Science of Getting From Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. On the show today, Katy and I walk through common reasons people aren't successful in changing, and the best, research-backed tools for turning uphill battles into downhill ones. We discuss the ideal times to begin a new habit and the power of fresh starts, how to get motivated to tackle something when there are more pleasurable things you'd rather be doing, how to use commitment devices to stay the course, why giving advice to someone else can help you take that advice yourself, and the crucial importance of surrounding yourself with peers who are better — but not too much better — than you are.

Get the show notes at aom.is/toolsforchange.

By day, two leaders of Britain's famous Nudge Unit use behavioral tricks to make better government policy. By night, they repurpose those tricks to improve their personal lives. They want to help you do the same.

A commitment device forces you to be the person you really want to be. What could possibly go wrong?