Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation

by Benjamin P. Hardy

In the first segment, Jimmy spoke to his Future Self, 6 months into the future. In the second video, he talked to his Future Self, 12 months into the future. In the third recording, he addressed his Future Self, 5 years into the future. And in the fourth, he spoke to his Future Self, 10 years into the future. Each video lasted around two minutes.

By October 4, 2020, when his third future me video aired, MrBeast had become the fastest rising YouTuber on the internet. He had more than 40 million subscribers. He’d become a household name. He operated a business with a team of more than 30 people and an annual revenue in excess of $100 million. His videos averaged 30 million views—some with hundreds of millions of views.

Just five years of head down hard work day in day out, aiming at living as future self

Not only did Jimmy become his desired Future Self, he shattered his vision again and again.

Although the dominant view, determinism was extremely limiting and negative. If a person had a lot of problems, those problems could only be explained by their past. And sadly, the main objective of psychology was simply to explain the problems, not solve them.

Research now shows that a person’s past does not drive or dictate their actions and behaviors. Rather, we are pulled forward by our future.

People have the ability to not only think about our own future, but to have countless potential scenarios for our future. Additionally, humans are able to contemplate deeply on our potential prospects.

We think about these options and eventually make a decision about which direction we’ll go. Psychologists call this unique human ability prospection; as people, everything we do is driven by our prospects of the future.27 Prospection is based on a teleological view of the world, which views all human action and behavior as driven by goals—whether short term or long term.28

Knowing the why is the deepest and most powerful form of knowledge because the why is always the driver of the what and how. When you understand why the stock market goes up and down, making informed decisions about investing becomes easier.

All goals or motivations fit within two categories: approach or avoid.29,30 The reason for doing anything is either to approach something you want to happen, or to avoid something you don’t want to happen. As a rule, 80 percent of people are primarily driven by fear or avoidance, while 20 percent of people are driven by approach and courage.

As Dr. David Hawkins explains: The advertising industry plays off our fears to sell us products. Grief has to do with the past, but fear, as we ordinarily experience it, is of the future. Fear is emotionally experienced in everyday life by the average person as worry, anxiety, or panic . . . Fear is a stinkingness and a fear of the future.31

We are generally dealing with so many immediate battles that it is hard for us to lift our gaze above the moment. It is a law of power, however, that the further and deeper we contemplate the future, the greater our capacity to shape it to our desires.32

50 Cent

The quality of connection you have with your own Future Self determines the quality of your life and behaviors now.

Quality, rich connection to who we want to be increases present day life quality!

Decisions and actions are best when reverse-engineered from a desired outcome. Start with what you want and work backward. Think and act from your goal, rather than toward your goal. Your brain does this automatically. Indeed, neuroscientists now agree the brain is essentially a “prediction machine,” guiding behavior toward the expected future.

The clearer you are on where you want to go, the less distracted you’ll be by endless options.

Clarity of future and steps needed stops procrastination.

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!

Live like today is your second chance!!!

When I pulled into my driveway, 3-year-old Phoebe was outside waiting. “Daddy!” She jumped around, excited to see me. Watching my beautiful and witty daughter, I knew my Future Self, 20 years from now, would give anything to experience this single moment. As my Future Self, I saw this moment very differently than I normally do. I was brought to tears by how much I loved her. I recognized her as a perfect gift sent from God.

Deeply appreciating the people in your life like they are a gift.

How is this my life? How am I so lucky? Taking in the setting, I saw my neighborhood and street differently. I felt reverence for what I experienced. I grasped that I stood on holy ground. After playing blissfully with Phoebe for about five minutes, I snapped a selfie to always remember the time my Future Self came back and played with his little girl.

You are your 53 year old self coming back into the past and getting the gift of reliving a past time.

Totally in flow, I loved the things that often annoyed me. Not only did I feel present and engaged, but I acted with greater kindness, perspective, and wisdom. My Future Self would handle this situation differently and better than current me.

Even deeper, I realized and fully appreciated that my Future Self might not be here in 20 years.

Once you are clear and committed, everything will filter through your goal—what psychologists call selective attention.61 You see what you’re looking for. You see what you care about. What you focus on expands.

RAS kicks in once you tell it what we are committed to.

In the words of American author Florence Shinn, “know you’ve already received and act according.”63 Know that whatever you want is already yours. Act as though everything you want can and will be yours.

When you commit 100 percent to what you want and know the end result is already yours, there will be a growing body of evidence about the future you’re creating. You’ll stop associating pain with the work and changes required for your goals. Instead, you’ll associate pain with not making progress toward your dreams.

While Freud and Adler emphasized a person’s past as the central aspect of their development, Frankl focused on a person’s future as the central aspect of their psychology. Frankl’s developing theory, which he called logotherapy based on the Greek word logos for “meaning,” believed a person’s development and quality of their mental health, stemmed from having meanings to fulfill in their own future.

When I was taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, a manuscript of mine ready for publication was confiscated. Certainly, my deep desire to write this manuscript anew helped me to survive the rigors of the camps I was in.

Resolve, hope to bring something transformational into reality to benefit those who are in despair.

Frankl married again, published many books, and developed his therapies based on having a meaning toward one’s future.

From Frankl’s perspective, a clear future is essential in all circumstances and critical in trauma. The most fundamental threat to a person’s Future Self is not the loss of freedom but the absence of purpose and meaning.

The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay .

Several, including Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and John Adams lived into their eighties. That would be like three friends living to age 150 today, when 75 is the current life expectancy. Purpose provides an unparalleled life-force, vibrancy, and zest.

According to Dr. Roy Baumeister and Dr. Kathleen Vohs, preeminent psychologists on the psychology of meaning, “Present events draw meaning from their connection to future outcomes.”6

Present connected to future gives it meaning.

A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. Instead of taking the camp’s difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless.

Choose to see circumstances as life tests. Perspective is everything.

For Frankl, having a purpose wasn’t some vague hope or optimism, but a tangible and specific goal. In fact, he used the word goal most often to describe having a “meaning to fulfill” in your future.

Tangible goals in the future we can realistically see and achieve keep us going!

Without hope, motivation is impossible. You can’t be motivated toward action or outcome with zero hope in its possibility.

Without hope, grit is impossible. According to Dr. Angela Duckworth, grit is passion and perseverance toward long-term goals. From her standpoint, hope is the powerpack that sustains you through the ups and downs of whatever you’re pursuing.8

Passion and perseverance is underpinned by hope.

Hope is the way because to have hope, you either see a way to realize your goal, or are flexible enough to create a way. When hope exists, there is always a way.

Hope can even create a path where there is none

Hope is more powerful than optimism, which is a general sense that the future will be better.11,12,13 Having a glimmer of hope is akin to having a deposit already banked and earning interest on your future purpose.

Hope is as strong as a future guarrantee of payment. Must be careful though, realistic hope, backed by faith we can make it better.

High-hope people find multiple pathways to reach their goals and willingly try new approaches. Low-hope people, on the other hand, stick with one approach and do not try other avenues when stymied. Instead of using problem-focused thought, the low-hope people often use counterproductive avoidance and disengagement thinking. Reinforced in the short term by their avoidance thoughts, low-hope people continue their passivity. Unfortunately, they do not learn from past experiences. High-hope people, however, use information about not reaching their goals as diagnostic feedback to search for other feasible approaches.

Don't be a low hope person. Fixed mindset, limited, stubborn thinking. Not learning from feedback. Not open to other paths.

To be gritty, you’ve got to stick with something for a long time, overcoming setbacks and obstacles along the way. Someone who switches from goal to goal to goal cannot gain that vital grit. An athlete who switches from one sport to the other isn’t gritty. Grit is sticking to one thing for years or even decades. The second aspect of grit and maturity is just as important. Maturity comes by committing to a specific long-term goal, and regularly switching out or upgrading pathways or systems to realize the overarching goal.

Grit is stickability and flexibility of the path.

As Frankl knew, hope is rooted in a clear purpose for your future. A high-hope person, like Frankl himself, remains committed 100 percent to a pursuit, and 100 percent flexible around the path to achieve their goal.

100% pursuit commitment 100% flexibility

According to renowned trauma expert Dr. Peter Levine, “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.”17 This police officer was my empathetic witness. He helped me process the shock and pain. He allowed me to cry. He helped me be proactive in how I framed this experience.

Get over trauma through an empathetic witness who takes the burden off you, helps you see it was not your fault.

Everyone has a plan until life punches them in the face. Whatever punches life gives to you, your past is just a story.

Past stories can always be rewritten

Emotional health happens when you contain both a positive past and an exciting future. Having a positive past depends very little on what events actually occurred.

Emotional health is healthy regard for thr past AND future. Rewrite and change the meaning of the past.

From a psychological standpoint, time is more holistic than sequential. We often think of time as the past that is behind us, the present that we’re now living, and the future that is ahead. But psychologically, the past, present, and future exist together here and now. “The past,” said American novelist William Faulkner, “is never dead. It’s not even past.”19

Everything is here available to us now, ready to be revised.

In this sense, it is more accurate to say the present causes the meaning of the past, than it is to say that the past causes the meaning of the present .

To have a better future we have to have a better past

How we handle pain and confusion largely dictates who our Future Self becomes. If you allow the pain of life to swallow you, then your primary goals become to numb yourself through addictions and distractions because you’re unwilling to face and transform those emotions.

We have to transform pain for our betterment.

Indeed, change often occurs when the pain of not changing becomes more unbearable than the pain of change.

Change happens when pain of change is LESS painful than carrying on without it.

When you go through something terrible, and you frame the experience in the gap, then life is happening to you, and you’re the byproduct of your experiences. You’re the powerless victim of what happened. The gap leads to unhealthy comparisons and a lack of learning from your experiences.

Don't look at the gap of our reality and our blueprint so much if we wish to be happy.

The gain happens when you transform every experience into personal growth. No matter what occurs, frame the experience as a gain. Proactively and consciously learn from your experiences, and become better, not bitter, as a result. When you go through something terrible, and you frame the experience in the gain, then life is happening for you. Rather than being the byproduct of your experiences, your experiences are the byproduct of your conscious choosing. You determine what your experiences mean.

Face backwards and see every situation as new XP gained in the game of life.

We don’t like to admit this, but our performance and results are often based on the expectations of those around us. Psychologists call this the Pygmalion effect.25 If you’re around people who have low expectations for you, you’ll fall to those standards. If you’re around people with high expectations, you’ll rise to those standards.

Be careful of who's standards you surround yourself with.

Interestingly, psychologists found that people prefer things, not because of internal reasons, but simply because they’ve been repeatedly exposed to them. This idea is known as the mere-exposure effect.27,28,29 Your desires are often the result of simply being exposed to something.

How can we shape our environments to regularly expose us to things that are good for us and our loved ones?

By proactively changing your inputs of information, experiences, and people, you become aware of what you previously didn’t know. You see what you previously didn’t notice. You seek what you previously didn’t want. You act in ways you previously didn’t behave.

Intentionally and rapidly take in as much positive input we can. Overcome our bad environments by shaping a new louder one.