A few years ago, my brother became a captain in the fire department.

Around the same time, he was turning 40, so I called to wish him a happy birthday. While we were catching up, he mentioned that he’d been eating healthier and working out consistently. Then he said something that surprised me: “I had a salad for lunch today.”

My brother has hunted since he was a teenager. Salad was never exactly his go-to meal.

When I asked if he was on a diet, he said, “Not really. I’m getting in shape for when I become captain. I want to look and feel the part before I actually take on the role.”

Hearing him talk about preparing for the promotion gave me a sense of how he was already stepping into the role before it was official. He was preparing internally for the version of himself the role required. In psychological terms, he was living in alignment with his future self—a concept researchers describe as the process of acting today in ways that embody who we want to become.

Research on future self-continuity (Hershfield, 2011) finds that when people........

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