Letter to your future self
The hard part is not the idea, it is the blank page. Here is what is worth writing down, and what you will wish you had included when you read it back.
Write a letter to your future self around six things: the date and what your life looks like right now, what is worrying you, what you are hoping will have happened, one prediction you are willing to be wrong about, one thing you want to be reminded of, and a question for the person reading it. Those six give the future reader something to compare against, which is what makes the letter worth opening. Keep it to a page, and decide when it comes back before you start writing.
Write the ordinary details, not the big feelings
The parts that land hardest on reading are almost never the reflections. They are the small facts: what the commute was, who you were having coffee with, how much the rent was, what was unresolved at work that week. Those are the details that will have changed without you noticing.
Big declarations about who you want to become age badly, because they tend to be true of everyone and specific to nobody. A paragraph about the current week is worth more than a page about your values.
Make sure it actually comes back
A letter you leave in a drawer is a letter you will find in nine years by accident, which is a different and lesser experience than opening one on a date you chose. Pick the date first, then pick the mechanism: a calendar reminder with the file attached, a scheduled email, or a service that mails it back to you.
A year is the usual interval and a good default. Five years is more dramatic and much more likely to go missing.
In Crystal, this is a future snapshot, on the Future page inside Progress. The act is the same one. The difference is that the letter comes back on schedule, it sits next to the goals you set at the time, and Crystal can hold it up against what actually happened rather than leaving you to remember.
How to do it
- 1
Date it and say where you are
The date, the city, the job, who you live with, what the week has been like. Two or three sentences of plain fact. This is the comparison point and it is the part you will not be able to reconstruct later.
- 2
Write down what is worrying you
Name the specific thing, not the general anxiety. Most of these resolve, and reading back a list of resolved worries is the most consistently useful thing a letter like this does.
- 3
Say what you are hoping will have happened
Three or four things, concretely. Not "be happier" but the actual events you are hoping for. Concrete hopes can be checked; abstract ones cannot.
- 4
Make one prediction you might get wrong
About work, a relationship, the world, anything. Being wrong is the point: a prediction you are certain of teaches you nothing when you read it back.
- 5
Write the thing you want to be reminded of
One line that the version of you reading this might need. Keep it specific to your actual situation rather than general encouragement, which will read as hollow coming from yourself.
- 6
Ask the reader a question, then set the return date
End with a direct question to whoever opens this, because it forces a reply and turns the letter into the first half of something. Then set the date and the mechanism before you close the file.
Common questions
What people ask about letter to your future self.
What should you write in a letter to your future self?
The date and the ordinary details of your life right now, what is worrying you, what you are hoping for, a prediction you might get wrong, something you want to be reminded of, and a question for the person reading it. The plain details matter more than the reflections.
How long should the letter be?
A page. Long enough for the six parts above, short enough that you finish it in one sitting. Letters that aim for profundity tend to get abandoned halfway and never sent.
How far in the future should you send it?
A year is the standard and works well: long enough that things have changed, short enough that you remember writing it. Five and ten year letters are more striking to receive and far more likely to be lost before they arrive.
What is a letter to your younger self?
The same exercise pointed backwards: writing to a past version of yourself about what you now know. It is a reflection rather than a prediction, so it cannot be checked later, which makes it good for processing something and less good as a record.
Keep reading
How to set goals
This is the method, in order, with the parts most guides leave out: how many to set, what the first week looks like, and what you do on the week it goes wrong.
Goal setting worksheet
Nine prompts, in order, designed to be answered on one side of paper. It takes about thirty minutes and the last two prompts are the ones that matter most.
SMART goals
The best known goal framework there is, and a genuinely useful one, as long as you know which part of the problem it solves and which part it leaves to you.
About the author
Drew D’Agostino, founder of Crystal.
Drew founded Crystal, the AI coach that understands you, used by millions of people to understand themselves and the people around them. He is the author of Predicting Personality, a book on reading other people through personality science to improve communication and business relationships.
Crystal is the AI coach that understands you.
It starts from who you are, then helps you decide where you are going and build the daily habits to get there.