🧠 Six Psychological Reasons You Neglect Your Future Self
🟣 And 21 questions to discover which one impacts you the most
⏱️ The plan for your 10 minutes of financial self-care:
👀 Discover 6 psychological reasons you neglect your Future Self.
🪞 Answer 21 questions to discover which one impacts you the most.
🧠 Learn 5 key concepts at the intersection of psychology and finance.
Hello there 💜
How are you today?
Despite the Netherlands being stuck in what feels like November or December 2023 with torrential rain and cold winds, I've found two ways to keep my spirits up:
Enjoying every type of sunbeam.
Diving into thoughts about the future!
In case you missed it, we’re currently exploring the topic of the Future Self here on Money Feelings. Preparing for these sessions pushes me to think deeply about my future—I never thought I’d enjoy this process so much!
And as if I needed more motivation to do so, I came across this inspiring Note by Veronica Llorca-Smith:
Zolt, what a fantastic reminder that 80 is not too late to chase new (creative) dreams!
Our upcoming Money Feelings sessions focus on our future to ensure we’re in the best financial situation to do like you.
Research is very clear. Thinking about the future can lead to better decisions for our psychological, physical and financial health. Yet, despite our increasing life expectancy and unsustainable pension systems, we spend almost no time at all thinking about it.
The consequence?
We treat our future selves as strangers—worse than how we treat ourselves now. We procrastinate on financial planning and avoid saving or investing for the additional years (extra life, almost!) that will come after we stop working, causing a retirement saving crisis.
Today, let's delve into the psychological reasons we neglect our Future Selves because we can only fix what we know.
👋 But first, if someone forwarded you this email, Money Feelings is your 10-minute self-care routine that blends psychology & finance to:
Kiss your limiting money mindsets and behaviors goodbye.
Grow your financial wisdom in style: less jargon, more emotion.
Increase your financial well-being, one feeling at a time.
If you don’t want to miss one:
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1. Living For the Now and the Trap of Present Bias
Here is a classic scenario at my house:
My husband is away for work for a few days. I put the kids to bed, and then I face a choice:
Watch The Bear’s new season, or
Meal prep’ for the week.
Of course I choose option 1 even though I know too well I’m shooting myself in the foot, leaving my Future Self stressed, overwhelmed, and in sensory overload the following evening by the sound of whining hungry kids in the background.
One of the reason for my poor choice? Present bias.
It’s a mental shortcut our brains take to simplify decision-making. We have plenty of these mental shortcuts (they’re called cognitive biases).
Present bias causes our brains to prioritize immediate rewards over future benefits. Because of it, it’s more challenging to think beyond the immediate moment. It affects everything from our health to our finances. It’s the little voice in everyone’s head that says “Let’s choose today’s dopamine hit over tomorrow’s dream.”
It is critical to be aware of and recognize present bias when it shows up to prevent unconsciously punishing ourselves later.
And let me be clear: I’m not saying we shouldn’t indulge, enjoy, treat ourselves, and live in the now.
But ensuring we live IN the new is different than living FOR the now.
Do you think someone entirely 'in the now' allows himself to self-sabotage by letting default psychological patterns like the present bias take over?
I believe that the living in the now philosophy is not against planning for the future—quite the contrary.
When fully present, we can navigate between proactive decision-making and reactive responses, minimizing the impact of subconscious patterns that might otherwise dominate our choices.
If I had been more present that night, I would have made a different choice.
I would have watched The Bear AND meal-prepped simultaneously.
Because I can. 💃🏻
How do you feel about this?
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2. Fear of Volatility, Instability, and the Future
According to Larry Flink, the Chairman of BlackRock:
“The biggest barrier to investing for retirement — or for anything — is fear.”
I relate to that; navigating the financial world can feel like a rollercoaster for many of us.
Whether we’re avid Financial Times readers or not, we have all heard that the markets are volatile. We have all heard of financial crises, inflation rates, changing economic policies, financial markets that seem to dance to their own tunes, economic shifts that keep us on our toes, and a myriad of factors like inflation rates and tax laws that constantly shape our financial landscape.
The markets and the economy feel unpredictable, holding us back from making important financial decisions.
It's understandable—how can we plan for the future when the rules seem to change weekly when we're drawn to security and immediate gratification?
In this context, retirement planning literally feels like predicting the future!
If this is something you experience, this might help you feel less alone: fear in investing is not only normal, it’s even an economic data point.
📌 The Fear & Greed Index is a popular tool developed by CNN Business to gauge market sentiment.
📌 The VIX, also called the fear index, is used as an indicator of market nervousness.
Fear can be a significant barrier to investing, not just in financial markets but in our dreams and aspirations.
When we invest for the future, whether in our careers, homes, or retirement funds, we are betting on a better tomorrow—a future filled with opportunities and growth.
But what is the state of hope right now?
The title alone of this Wall Street Journal article might give us an indication: The Rough Years that Turned Gen Z into America’s Most Disillusioned Voters.
I don’t think I need to overexplain the main message of this article, but I’ll share two statistics:
Compared with 20 years ago, the current cohort of young Americans is 50% more likely to question whether life has a purpose.
Four-in-ten say it’s “hard to have hope for the world.”
It’s not just in the US. In France, where I’m from, research from 2023 found that young people's optimism about their future is at its lowest since the research began 13 years ago. Fear and sadness are the most common feelings among the youth regarding the future. Environmental issues, particularly, were found to have a major impact on their ability to project themselves into the future.
It’s hard to feel totally relaxed about investing money in your future in this context…
What do you think?
3. Investing Is Only for the Wealthy and Other Limiting Beliefs
Money management is for men.
Investing is for the rich.
Investing in the stock market is too risky.
Money shouldn’t be talked about.
Finance is boring.
Here are just some of the limiting money beliefs I inherited from my parents and their parents.
📌 Money beliefs are like computer programs that predictably influence our reactions to money; we all have unconscious ones about money that shape our financial behaviors. They often take root in childhood, influenced by teachings from our parents, our culture, and our social environment.
Some are limiting because they represent thoughts or convictions about ourselves that hinder our (financial) progress.
Let’s see if you hold one or more of these beliefs.
And remember, this is not an exhaustive list and we’re not discussing whether these statements are true but whether they are your beliefs.
4. Financial Exclusion, and Fear of Jargon.
Yes, most money moves require some knowledge of finance. It’s important to gain some level of financial literacy. I fully believe that as individuals, we need to stay curious, keep learning, and not wait to be fed information.
But when we want to learn, traditional finance codes can feel stuck in ancient ways, or simply excluding and alienating.
Just last month, I noticed another European neobroker trying to get more women to invest on their platform by organizing an all-pink champagne party for women only, where the only speaker was a middle-aged white man in a suit from a big brokerage firm telling them, “How to be more confident with investing.”
Can we please stop with the condescending investing speech that keeps women stuck thinking they don’t have enough confidence to invest? 😭
Financial exclusion is real. We’re a bit short on time today to dig into this fascinating topic, but if you have a couple of hours, I suggest this incredible research piece from the European Commission.
The other side effect of jargon? It makes us feel stressed!
A recent research from the British bank Barclays showed that financial terms can literally make people feel anxious.
In fact, they even managed to list the 10 financial and investment terms that produced the slowest reaction times, indicating the most intense stress reactions:
How do you feel about that?
5. Too Much Pressure, Stress and the Retire Early Discourse
One of my least favorite expressions in the finance world is: “The best time to start investing is yesterday.”
The streeeess I get from reading this every time.
I know people need to get on with investing for their future. That’s literally what I’m trying to do here too :)
But soon, these types of messages won’t be satirical anymore 👇
Money is already our biggest sources of stress. Can we find a way to get people to care for their Future Selves without adding to the stress?
Because while a small amount of stress is known to enhance our decision-making skills, excessive stress can be catastrophic!
I completely understand the appeal of the Financial Independence, Retire Early (FIRE) movement but I’m wondering if it doesn’t amplify the problem for many of us.
On this specific topic, I loved this article by Andrew Oxlade of Fidelity, in which he says:
Barely a week passes without mention of the powerfully appealing phrase 'early retirement' - on social media and news websites, and among bloggers and podcasters.
Escaping the rat race has always held appeal but the allure appears to be growing and becoming more intense.
He says the number of searches for 'retire early' has risen three-fold in a decade!
How does that make you feel?
6. Your Future Self is a Stranger
Despite our incredible ability to think about the future, we rarely think about ourselves in the future. That’s why we tend to treat our Future Selves worse than we treat ourselves now by procrastinating on essential tasks for our psychological, physical, and financial well-being.
As Hal Hershfield, psychologist and author of The Future Self, would say:
In reflecting on our possible future selves, we can plan for them. Shape them. Change them.
According to his research, people who are more connected with their Future Self, who try to imagine and describe their Future Selves, end up putting more money into a hypothetical savings account than those who do not!
And more generally, research shows that individuals who think far into the future make a variety of future-oriented decisions, such as investing in the future and avoiding future harms.
Why does future thinking affect decisions?
Because it makes the future seem more connected to the present.
What’s Your Main Culprit?
Of course, it's impossible to create a truly exhaustive list, as many factors influence our decision-making. If you believe there's another reason we missed, please share it with us in the comments.
I hope this list wasn’t too daunting!
The mysteries of psychology mean we don’t always do what’s best for us. The good news is that psychology and finance offer plenty of tools to help us progress.
But there's already a lot to digest today! We’ll explore these tools in the next editions.
Another reminder: Progress is great, but it's also important to stay compassionate with ourselves when we step back. I loved this reminder from
. 👇
👏 Well done!
In the past 10 minutes:
✅ You discovered 6 psychological reasons you might neglect to care for your fabulous Future Self.
✅ You answered 21 questions to understand which of these reasons might be the strongest in you.
✅ You learned about 5 concepts at the intersection of psychology and finance: cognitive biases, the present bias, the Fear & Greed Index, the VIX, and limiting money beliefs.
I hope you enjoyed this session and found some value for yourself.
If you did, you can:
Make sure you get the next episode of 🔮 Your Future Self 🔮 by subscribing.
Let me know in the comments or by clicking on the 💜 at the bottom of the newsletter. It means a lot and helps get the newsletter in front of other eyes.
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If you’re not done exploring this subject for today, I suggest reading last week’s session:
Take good care of yourself and,
Pauline 💜