Key takeaways

• The more connected you feel with your future self, the easier it is to save for retirement
• Studies show a reduction in anxiety and greater motivation among those who connect with their future selves
• Individuals with a greater sense of self-continuity tend to have better financial health overall

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Your caseload is full, your practice is earning a steady profit, and the future looks good—but despite it all, you still struggle to set aside retirement savings.

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As a self-employed therapist, you don’t benefit from an employer-sponsored plan. But that’s only part of the problem. The greatest source of your nest egg woes may not be financial but—go figure—psychological.

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UCLA’s Hal Hershfield has spent more than two decades studying how our relationship with our future selves affects decisions we make in the present. Much of his work touches on the psychology of saving and investing, including building up retirement funds. 

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His findings suggest that, when we feel a greater sense of continuity with future selves—that is, when we’re better able to see the “me” of today in the “me” to come—we make more prudent financial decisions.

Here’s a closer look at what Hershfield’s research has to say, plus strategies you can use to 

connect with your future self and improve your savings strategy today.

Sources and methodology

Hershfield’s book Your Future Self: How to Make Tomorrow Better Today draws on multiple studies and decades of research to demonstrate why we struggle to identify with our future selves and how, once the connection has been made, we can be empowered to adjust our present-day choices to benefit ourselves further down the line. 

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It’s a good general introduction to Hershfield’s research and philosophy, written for a non-specialist audience. In addition to Hershfield’s book, two recent papers by Hershfield et al. delve deeper into the topic.

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Back to the Present: How Direction of Mental Time Travel Affects Similarity and Saving covers online studies using paid participants as well as field studies using mobile banking and savings apps. It demonstrates how reframing the direction of mental time travel—that is, starting off by thinking of your future self, and then working backwards to the present—leads to more future-oriented present-day decision making. 

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By default, most people think of their present selves and then project forward into the future. That can make our future selves seem like strangers. Working backwards creates a stronger sense of identity—the future seems less alien.

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Future You: A Conversation with an AI-Generated Future Self Reduces Anxiety, Negative Emotions, and Increases Future Self-Continuity demonstrates how, when subjects interacted with an AI chatbot modeling their future selves, the felt a greater sense of of continuity with the future and a reduction in present-day anxieties.

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The chatbot, Future You, is still live, and you can experiment with it yourself to get a sense of what research subjects experienced.

The return trip effect

One of the most intriguing results of Hershfield’s research has to do with time travel.

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This isn’t the kind of time travel that requires a DeLorean outfitted with a flux capacitor. It’s a more mundane variety, the kind you undertake mentally when you imagine yourself in the future. 

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You might travel forty years into the future to the person you will be once you close your private practice and retire. Or you might jump one year into the future to the person you will be when you finally attempt to run a half-marathon. You may even travel eight hours into the future to the person you will be after you eat that burrito you found in the back of the fridge.

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Time travel in this sense shapes our present day decisions—whether they have to do with savings, fitness routines, or (questionable) dietary options. Hershfield’s research shows that our likelihood of making smart decisions now is affected by the direction we travel.

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In a 2009 study, Hershfield et al. used fMRI to measure the brain activity of research subjects imagining different people. They found that subjects’ activity when they identified with their future selves was more like their activity when they imagined a stranger (Matt Damon or Natalie Portman) than when they imagined themselves in the present.

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It seems that—at least when it comes to the future—we are strangers to ourselves.

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The time travel piece comes into play with Hershfield et al.’s more recent paper, Back to the Present: How Direction of Mental Time Travel Affects Similarity and Saving. An initial study showed that 84% of survey respondents naturally pictured their future selves by starting in the present and looking forward. (Just 15% started in the future and looked back, and 2% reported using neither approach.)

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When prompted to try a future-to-present approach, subjects reported a greater sense of similarity between their future and present selves and a lower sense of uncertainty about the future. They were also more likely, when asked, to invest a $1,000 windfall in a 20-year Treasury bill (52% of future-to-present subjects vs. 45% of present-to-future).

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These effects were mirrored in field studies. Mobile banking app users in Sweden were given one of two prompts—to imagine their future selves looking back, or to look forward from the present to the future—and then asked to sign up for a retirement savings product. The future-to-present group signed up at a rate of 14.24%, while the present-to-future group signed up at a rate of 12.13 percent.

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Another field study used similar messaging encouraging users in the US to sign up for college savings plans. Of the future-to-present group, 0.35% signed up; of the present-to-future, just 0.10 percent.

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These aren’t earthshaking results—even with future-to-present mental framing, it seems that many people would prefer short-term rewards to long-term planning. But the numbers do suggest a shift in how people identify with their future selves. 

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Why the change, though? Hershfield et al. hypothesize the return trip effect plays a role.

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Studies have shown that, when travelling away from their home, people perceive the trip to an outside destination as lasting longer than the trip back home from that destination.

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Similarly, the “temporal going-home effect” posited by Hershfield et al. may be due to a perceived shortening of distance: 

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Because people live in the present, the present self represents a temporal version of home. By contrast, the future is a less certain destination... starting in the future and going home (to the present) might make the two points feel closer, which could induce a sense that the present and future selves are similar—that is, a temporal going-home effect.

Meet the future you

If imagining your future self can help you make better financial decisions, what happens when you and your future self sit down for a friendly chat?

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Without a time machine, that kind of meetup is impossible. But Future You comes close.

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Hershfield and his fellow researchers launched Future You, an AI chatbot, in 2024. To use it, you complete a survey and upload a personal photo. Then Future You generates an AI avatar representing your 60-year-old self—complete with an artificially aged headshot—who you can chat with.

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Provided you fill out the pre-chat survey honestly, your Future You avatar knows a lot about you: Your hopes and dreams for the future, your high points and low points, the dilemmas you face, and what you hope to achieve by the time you reach retirement age. So a conversation with Future You can be pretty believable (maybe even unsettlingly so).

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Every user of Future You consents to having their information used for research purposes. As of 2026, over 60,000 individuals have signed up, but Hershfield et al.’s paper on Future You looked at just 344 participants (selected from an initial batch of 400) to measure the effects of the tool.

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Each chat session lasted 10 – 30 minutes, and participants were 18 to 30 years of age. This particular study didn’t have to do with financial matters, but with participants’ emotions and attitudes about the future.

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Compared to a control group, users who chatted with their future selves showed significantly decreased anxiety and increased motivation. They also reported an increased sense of continuity with their future selves, including stronger feelings of connection and similarity.

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Even minus a custom chatbot, artificially aged photos can help individuals feel more connected with their future selves. In one study Hershfield outlines in his book, adolescents were given access to a VR “aging mirror.” Those who looked into the mirror were more likely than those who didn’t to put a $1,000 windfall into savings rather than spend it in the present. When the experiment was repeated with working adults, three out of four who looked into the aging mirror said they would put the $1,000 towards savings.

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And in an online test, participants who saw a future-self photo of themselves put aside more savings for retirement—an average of 6%, compared to 2% saved by those who didn’t see a photo.

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Other studies covered in Hershfield’s book show Americans who reported a greater sense of continuity and connection with their future selves reported, ten years after being surveyed, higher average assets. (This outcome was equally replicated across all demographics and income levels.) 

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Forging a deeper connection with your future self helps you realign your priorities, shifting them from short-term gratification to long-term planning. But how do you make it a reality?

“Future you” hacks for retirement savings

If you want to put aside enough money so that the future you is grateful they have such a thoughtful past self, you’ll need a retirement savings strategy tailored to therapists in private practice.

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That’s the easy part. The hard part is committing to a plan and overcoming the urge to spend any extra income now. But, by taking advantage of a few simple hacks rooted in Hershfield’s research, you can make the job easier.

Write a letter from your future self

Imagine the US Postal Service has perfected time travel. Now, sit down and write a letter as your future self addressed to your present self. 

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Maybe your goal is to encourage yourself to start saving; you can talk about how you want to spend your time after you retire, and the anxiety you feel as you prepare. Or you could assume the present you has already chosen the right course, and write to say thank you; express gratitude for the actions they’ve taken to make sure you’re comfortable, and illustrate what life would look like if you hadn’t saved.

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Try not to get hung up on time travel paradoxes, and focus on the realities you might face as you approach retirement. The important thing is to be thorough and realistic, and fill out your mental picture of what life will be like in the future.

Draft a contract with your future self

Write and sign an agreement between present you and future you. No need to involve a lawyer or get tangled up in legalese. The aim is to make a promise to yourself and stick to it.

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These types of goal-setting exercises don’t always work out. If you make a New Year’s resolution to quit bingeing reality TV and put it in writing, it’s all too easy to tear up that decision the next time your favorite series premiers.

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But this contract is different. You’re signing it with someone you haven’t met yet—you, circa retirement age. So imagine yourself thirty or forty years in the future reading through the contract and the promises you made. Are you proud of yourself for staying true to your word? Are you regretful because your plans weren’t more realistic? Or are you slightly peeved with yourself because you failed to stick with the plan?

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Don’t forget to bring future you into the drafting process. Maybe future you promises to make that trip to Tuscany you’ve always dreamed of. Maybe they promise to write their memoirs, take up gardening, or spend as much time with their grandchildren as possible. Making those promises can help you get your priorities in line and tangibly realize the benefit of retirement savings.

Experiment with the Future You chatbot

If you’re comfortable disclosing personal information and participating in Future You’s research project, the chatbot app can provide a more direct, concrete experience than writing a letter or signing a contract with yourself.

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If, on the other hand, you’re leery about sharing your deepest, darkest secrets with AI—or if chatbots just give you the creeps—you can still benefit from the Future You project. Walk through the onboarding steps and make a note of each question asked in the survey. (You can fill the fields with “dummy” information, since you aren’t actually going to create a chatbot.)

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Then work through those survey questions on your own in a separate document. Even if you’re not creating a chatbot, the questions are designed to help AI create a pretty real facsimile of your future self. The answers you write—and the thoughts and emotions you go through as you consider each one carefully—can help you create your own mental picture of yourself at age 60. That makes the letter-writing exercise—or the contract exercise, or simply thinking about the future—feel more real.

Add some common sense to the mix

If you’ve walked through these future you visualizations and you’re still finding it hard to save, a few tried-and-true techniques can make it easier:

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• Bite-size chunks: One study showed that participants were more willing to set aside $5 each day in savings than they were to save $150 per month—even though the two amount to the same savings. Smaller chunks of change are easier to part with and may feel more rewarding.

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• Pre-commitment. Setting up an automatic transfer from your main bank account to a savings account reduces friction. Now, rather than deciding to put X dollars into your IRA each month, it’s just another automatic payment. The reward comes when, after  a year of making these payments, you check your account and see how much you’ve put aside without really thinking about it.

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• Set up a SEP IRA. For a number of reasons, a SEP IRA is one of the best types of retirement accounts for private practice therapists. Set one up now to get the ball rolling. Then use Heard to track your finances and get up-to-date reports.

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—

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Hummingbird or ostrich: how big does your nest egg need to be? Get the answer with How Much Should Therapists Save for Retirement? 

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Summary

• Hal Hershfield’s research shows that we make better retirement savings decisions when we have a greater sense of continuity with our future selves
• When asked to imagine their future selves and look back in time—rather than their present selves looking forward—subjects were more willing to save for the future
• One study showed that, after using the Future You chatbot, participants were less likely to feel anxious or unmotivated
• You can use the future you trick by writing a letter from your future self to the present or drafting a contract with them, motivating you to set aside retirement savings
• Breaking savings into smaller pieces, pre-committing to savings, and taking the first step by setting up a SEP IRA can make saving easier

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Sources

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Christensen, Katherine L. et al. “Back to the Present: How Direction of Mental Time Travel Affects Perceptions of Similarity over Time and Saving Behavior.” Journal of Consumer Research (2024): n. pag.

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Ersner-Hershfield, H., Wimmer, G.E., & Knutson, B. (2009). Saving for the future self: neural measures of future self-continuity predict temporal discounting. Social cognitive and affective neuroscience, 4 1, 85-92 .

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Hershfield, H. (2023). Your Future Self. Little, Brown Spark.

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Pataranutaporn, P., Winson, K., Yin, P., Lapapirojn, A., Ouppaphan, P., Lertsutthiwong, M., Maes, P., & Hershfield, H.E. (2024). Future You: A Conversation with an AI-Generated Future Self Reduces Anxiety, Negative Emotions, and Increases Future Self-Continuity. 2024 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE), 1-10.

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van de Ven, N., van Rijswijk, L., & Roy, M.M. (2011). The return trip effect: Why the return trip often seems to take less time. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 18.

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