The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It

MEET YOUR FUTURE SELF
I’d like to introduce you to two people I think you’ll really get along with. This first is You. You is
prone to procrastination, has trouble controlling impulses, and doesn’t really like to exercise, finish
up paperwork, or do the laundry. The second is, um, also named You. For convenience, let’s call this
person You 2.0. You 2.0 has no trouble with procrastination because You 2. 0 has boundless energy
for all tasks, no matter how boring or difficult. You 2.0 also has amazing self-control, and is able to
face down potato chips, the Home Shopping Network, and inappropriate sexual advances with nary a
craving nor a tremble.
Who are You and You 2.0? 
You
is the person reading this chapter, perhaps feeling a little tired and
cranky from lack of sleep and overwhelmed by the ten other things you need to do today. You 2.0 is
future you. No, not the person you’ll magically become when you finish the last page of this book.
Future you is the person you imagine when you wonder whether you should clean the closet today or
leave it to your future self. Future you is the person who will be much more enthusiastic about
exercising than you are right now. Future you is the person who will order the healthiest item on the
fast-food menu, so that present you can enjoy the burger so artery-clogging, you must sign a legal
waiver to order it.
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Future you always has more time, more energy, and more willpower than present you. At least,
that’s the story we tell ourselves when we think about our future selves. Future you is free from
anxiety and has a higher pain tolerance than present you—making future you the perfect person to get
that colonoscopy. Future you is better organized and more motivated than present you, making it only
logical to let future you handle the hard stuff.
It is one of the most puzzling but predictable mental errors humans make: We think about our future
selves like different people. We often idealize them, expecting our future selves to do what our
present selves cannot manage. Sometimes we mistreat them, burdening them with the consequences of
our present selves’ decisions. Sometimes we simply misunderstand them, failing to realize that they
will have the same thoughts and feelings as our present selves. However we think of our future
selves, rarely do we see them as fully 
us
.
Princeton University psychologist Emily Pronin has shown that this failure of imagination leads us
to treat our future selves like strangers. In her experiments, students are asked to make a series of
self-control choices. Some are choosing what they are willing to do today, while others are choosing
for themselves in the future. Still others get to decide what another student—the next person to show
up for the study—will have to do. And though you might think we would naturally form an alliance
between our present selves and future selves, it turns out that we are more likely to save our present
selves from anything too stressful, but burden our future selves like we would a stranger.
In one experiment, students were asked to drink a revolting liquid made from ketchup and soy
sauce. The students got to choose how much of the drink they were willing to consume in the name of
science. The more they drank, the more helpful it would be to the researchers—a perfect “I will”
power challenge. Some students were told that the drinking part of the study would take place in a
matter of minutes. Other students were told that the drinking part of the study would be scheduled for
next
semester. Their present selves were off the hook, and their future selves would be the ones
choking down the concoction. Still other students were asked to choose how much of the ketchup

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cocktail the next participant in the study would be required to drink. What would you do? What would
future you do? What would you expect of a stranger?
If you’re like most people, your future self has more of an appetite for science (and soy sauce) than
present you. The students assigned their future selves, and the next participant, more than twice as
much of the disgusting liquid (almost half a cup) as they were willing to drink in the present (two
tablespoons). Students showed the same bias when asked to donate time for a good cause. They
signed up their future selves for 85 minutes of tutoring fellow students in the next semester. They were
even more generous with other students’ time, signing them up for 120 minutes of tutoring. But when
asked to commit for the present semester, their present selves had only 27 minutes to spare. In a third
study, students were given the choice between a small amount of money now, or a larger delayed
payment. When choosing for their present selves, they took the immediate reward. But they expected
their future selves—and other students—to delay gratification.
Thinking so highly of our future selves would be fine if we could really count on our future selves
to behave so nobly. But more typically, when we get to the future, our ideal future self is nowhere to
be found, and our same old self is left making the decisions. Even as we’re in the middle of a self-
control conflict, we foolishly expect that our future selves will be uncon-flicted. The future self keeps
being pushed into the future, like a deus ex machina 
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that will emerge to save us from our present
selves in the very last act. We put off what we need to do because we are waiting for someone else to
show up who will find the change effortless.