Checklist: Never Be Defined by A Personality Test Again

THE
SELF
CHECKLIST
NEVER BE DEFINED BY A PERSONALITY TEST AGAIN
BENJAMIN HARDY PHD
The Future Self
Checklist
“Anyone who isn't embarrassed of who they were last
year probably isn't learning enough.”—Alain de Botton
Here’s the fact: one of the core findings in psychology is that the
best way to predict a person’s future behavior is by looking at their
past. What does this mean? It means that for most people, their
behavior is coming from their past.
This checklist will teach you why that is, and more importantly, how
you can do the opposite of what most people are doing. Rather than
having your past dictate your behavior, you can have your desired
future dictate your behavior. When this is the case, you’ll be living
powerfully, presently, and intentionally on a daily-basis.
Creating Peak Experiences &

Stretching As A Person
When you’re living powerfully and intentionally, you’ll have peak
experiences on a regular basis… like daily or weekly.
Peak experiences stretch your perspective and mindset. They allow

you to see the world and yourself from a much broader perspective.
They allow you to not cling so tightly to your former and narrow
views. Instead, you realize you can be more and have more than you
currently have. You’re not defined by the past. You’ll experience
deep awe and amazement by the reality of life, and the reality that
you have far more choice in what you do and who you become than
you previously thought.
Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Peak experiences are a point of no return. As Oliver Wendell
Holmes, Jr. stated, “A mind that is stretched by new experience can
never go back to its old dimensions.”
The philosopher Colin Wilson has said, “If you want a positive
reaction (or a peak experience), your best chance of obtaining it is
by putting yourself into an active, purposive frame of mind.
Depression is the natural outcome of negative passivity. The peak
experience is the outcome of a
intentional attitude.”
Your “Purpose” Is Your Choice

You need an “intentional attitude” in order to create peak
experiences and therefore stretch, grow, and evolve as a person.
However, in order to be “intentional,” you have a sense of purpose
and direction for your life.
If you don’t have a “purpose,” then you cannot be intentional. Viktor

Frankl, the famed WWII Holocaust survivor found that when the
prisoners lost hope and purpose for their future, the present
circumstances became unbearable and they literally died. As he
stated in Man’s Search for Meaning, "Life is never made unbearable
by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose."
Here’s the challenge for most people: They are “searching” for their
purpose, just like many people are “searching” for their passion and
even “searching” for themselves. You don’t “find” yourself. You
create yourself through your choices. As Frankl further explained:
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the
striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”
Your “purpose” is a freely chosen task. It’s what you decide to invest yourself
into and what you decide to give meaning to.
Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Choose Your Future
What is the purpose you’re going to choose to pursue?
Without a sense of purpose in your future, your present situation

will lack meaning. As a result, you’ll have depression and apathy.
As a result, you won’t have a great deal of peak experiences.
You won’t stretch and grow as a person to the level you could.
Interestingly, research shows that as people age, they become
less open to having new experiences, and as a result, their lives
become overly repetitious and routine. They overly solidify and
stop evolving.
Dan Sullivan, the founder of Strategic Coach has said, “The only
way to make your present better is by making your future bigger.”
You get to choose how big your future is. As stated before, the
only way to be “intentional” and “purposeful” in the present is by
having a clear and chosen future in mind. Dr. Hal Hershfield, a
psychologist at UCLA has found this in his research. What’s he’s
found is that, if you view your future self as a different person,
you can then make decisions here-and-now based on what your
future self would want, rather than what you want solely in the
moment.
Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist has found that people

don’t do a very good job predicting their future, not because they
can’t… but because they don’t! The reason why, from Gilbert’s
research, is that very few people spend much time imagining
their future selves!!! Instead, we assume that who we are
today is who we’ll always be.
Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Future Self Checklist
With that backdrop… Let’s breakdown this Future Self Checklist
and give you the science-based action steps you can immediately
take to become who you want to be. To be absolutely clear: If
you want to aggressively become your desired future self, you’re
going to have to step outside your comfort zone regularly. Your
personality and comfort zone are the same thing! Going outside
your comfort zone will create uncertainty in your life. You’ll make
mistakes. You’ll experience failures. You’ll experience anxiety
and sometimes frustrations. However, you’ll also have lots of
deep learning and peak experiences, because as you
intentionally go outside your comfort zone to create the life you
want, you’ll evolve and change as a person.
Just know that your brain is literally designed to keep you

outside your comfort zone. Your brain is a “prediction machine”
that forms memories so you can predict the outcomes of your
behaviors. When you go outside your comfort zone and try new
things, you’ll experience uncertainty, and your fight-or-flight
response will happen, leading you to want to get back to “safety.”
It is for this reason, and many others, that people stay in

repetitive patterns far longer than they need to. People choose to
stay where it’s “safe,” and as a result, they stop developing as a
people.
In psychology, there is a concept called “psychological

flexibility,” which means you hold your current identity and
current emotions “loosely” as you pursue meaningful goals.
You’re flexible in challenging and new situations. You’re
increasingly adaptive. You’re not rigid. You’re not stuck. You’re
growing in your confidence.
Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Steps To Become
Your Future Self
Imagine who you want to be
Journal about who you want to be
Write in your journal every day for 5-15 minutesabout
your desired future self
Write in definite terms about who you want to be
Decide who you want to be in 3 years from now
Start telling people about your future self
Use your “future self” as the new way you
explain yourself, rather than your current or former self
Create a morning routine where you get up, get yourself
into the right environment without distractions, and
activate your future-self mindset
You do this by keeping your phone on airplane mode
and ideally away from your body
Mediation and prayer
Journaling and visualizing your future self at a specific
time in your future
Writing about what you need to do today to move
yourself close
Take action toward your future self before the
busyness of the day takes over
Every action you take toward your future self is an
“intentional” and “purposeful” behavior that will create
regular peak experiences, stretching you as a person
Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Invest money into your future self—whether that be
courses, skills, mentors experiences.
Change your environment to match your future self—
including the information, food, people, and experiences
you consume
The bolder your action toward your future self, the more
emotionally flexible and evolved you will be come. The
more emotionally evolved you become, the less
constrained you’ll be by your past or your circumstances.
The choice is yours….

Who will you be?
How much progress will you make today?
How emotionally flexible will you become?
How much of your behavior toward was based on

your future
self and how much was on autopilot?
How many peak experiences are you going to create

this week?
Benjamin Hardy, PhD

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THE

Creating Peak Experiences &

Peak experiences stretch your perspective and mindset. They allow

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Your “Purpose” Is Your Choice

If you don’t have a “purpose,” then you cannot be intentional. Viktor

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

What is the purpose you’re going to choose to pursue?

Without a sense of purpose in your future, your present situation

Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychologist has found that people

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Just know that your brain is literally designed to keep you

It is for this reason, and many others, that people stay in

In psychology, there is a concept called “psychological

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

The choice is yours….

How emotionally flexible will you become?

How much of your behavior toward was based on

How many peak experiences are you going to create

Benjamin Hardy, PhD

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