As people, it’s easier to look back and see changes in ourselves than it is to look forward and project changes. In psychology, this concept is known as the end-of-history illusion.
It’s a simple idea, really. If you were to look back 10 years and examine all the ways in which you’re different from your former self, you’d be able to come up with a lengthy list of all the ways you’ve changed, in both big ways and small ones.
Take, for example, the way you make decisions, or even the decisions you see as desirable. Chances are, you have different mental models and values and principles guiding the decisions you make than your former self did 10 years ago. But what about smaller things, like the kinds of people you’re surrounded by, or your favorite foods and types of music?
Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist, has found that when people are given time to reflect, they can see massive differences between their current and former selves. However, when asked to project forward 10 years, consistently, people of all ages predict only small changes between their current and future selves. As Gilbert explains in a 2014 mainstage TED Talk:
At every age, people underestimate how much their personalities will change in the next decade. And it isn’t just ephemeral things like values and personality. You can ask people about their likes and dislikes, their basic preferences. For example, name your best friend, your favorite kind of vacation, what’s your favorite hobby, what’s your favorite kind of music… To give you an idea of the magnitude of this effect… 18-year-olds anticipate changing only as much as 50-year-olds actually do… Human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they’re finished.
Gilbert explained a core reason for this is likely “the ease of remembering and the difficulty of imagining.” As he continues,
Most of us can remember who we were 10 years ago, but we find it hard to imagine who we’re going to be, and then we mistakenly think that because it’s hard to imagine, it’s not likely to happen. Sorry, when people say, “I can’t imagine that,” they’re usually talking about their own lack of imagination, and not about the unlikelihood of the event that they’re describing.
Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset
Interestingly, the popular research by Stanford psychologist Dr. Carol Dweck seems relevant here. In her research, she distinguished the “growth mindset” from the “fixed mindset.” A growth mindset, according to Dweck, is the belief that your characteristics, abilities, and personality are flexible and can change. The fixed mindset, conversely, is the belief that your characteristics, abilities, and personality are fixed and unchangeable.
Dweck explains that those with a fixed mindset are more interested in proving their capability and talent, whereas those with a growth mindset are more interested in learning. To use Dr. Brené Brown’s language, those with a fixed mindset attempt to “be right,” while those with a growth mindset attempt to “get it right.”
When you’re trying to “be right,” you’re seeking to prove your current perspective and position. When you’re seeking to “get it right,” you know that your current perspectives and positions will change as you get new and better information.
Connecting this back to Gilbert’s research: It seems that people often get stuck in a fixed mindset, in which they’ve overly identified as their current selves and incorrectly assume that who they are now is who they will always be. They lack the imagination that they can and will change in big and small ways in the coming years and decades.
Also, considering the social and political landscape, it can seem that people are often more interested in “being right” than “getting it right.” This is why Dr. Adam Grant’s recent book, Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, is so relevant. Grant describes an idea he calls, “The joy of being wrong,” which encourages embracing new perspectives and continually evolving our thinking.
Conclusion
Pulling this together, it’s helpful to recognize that you’re not the exact same person you were in the past. Similarly, it’s also helpful to realize that your future self will also be a different person than who you currently are. In fact, research shows that viewing your future self as a different person than you are now is helpful for decision-making. It enables you to have empathy for your future self, strive to understand what matters to them, and utilize that perspective to make better decisions here and now.
By knowing that your future self will be a different person, you can tap into a growth mindset in which you embrace the joy of being wrong. Rather than trying to prove your current self, you know that your current self is “transitory and fleeting,” to use Gilbert’s language. Even tomorrow, you’ll be somewhat different than you are today.
This liberating perspective also enables us to have empathy toward other people. Rather than overly judging someone based on who they were in the past, or even on who they are today, we can recognize that they, too, have the capacity for change.
This article was written by Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D., who is an organizational psychologist and the bestselling author of Willpower Doesn’t Work and Personality Isn’t Permanent. He lives in Orlando, FL, with his wife and five children.