Is your current environment, especially your relationships, inspiring and challenging you to create a better future? If that person has anxieties about finances – that’s reframing your own worry as belonging to your future self – then think what you can do now to be a friend and ally to him. These self-dubbed “positive psychologists” provided an almost polar opposite explanation for human behavior: that human beings weren’t pushed by their past; they were pulled by their future. For instance, the writing in his latest book is a vast improvement on the writing in his first book. The more you are connected with your future self, the better quality decisions you will make in the present.

In my early 20s, I was wide-eyed, bushy-tailed, and visualizing the woo-woo thanks to the Law of Attraction books. This is especially poignant because he draws quotes so liberally from historical figures without his privileges.Does the author really think he can try to deal with determinism and free will in a matter of a paragraph? Benjamin Hardy is an organizational psychologist and best-selling author of Willpower Doesn't Work and Personality Isn't Permanent.

Definitely opened my mind up to new things and gave me a clear direction on what I need to do moving forward. I see it as urging us to create a fantasy in place of the now, a fantasy of the future that – if we believe hard enough – we can will into existence.The most fundamental threat to a person’s Future Self is not the loss of freedom but the absence of purpose and meaning. They’ll also be in a different world—a world with different cultural values, different technologies, and different challenges. If we, however, are willing to consistently release imperfect work, we will develop confidence and the necessary momentum to create huge success.