Many philosophers have held the theories that we should hold a healthy balance of looking to all parts of our life past, present and future, and that writing a letter to your future self can have profound & impactful benefits.
However philosopher Derek Parfit has argued that most of us struggle with this and are not “temporal neutral”, we have a robust bias toward the future.
Whilst the act of writing letters can be achieved for past selves too, today we are going to focus on the benefits of using our inherent future bias as a source for our own positive impact.
How to write a letter to your future self?
Firstly let’s discuss what to include when thinking about writing to the future version of you:
- What do your relationships look like?
- What are you doing for business/ career/ or passion?
- How much money do you want to be receiving into your personal and/ or business bank account each month?
- Where do you live?
- What does your body feel like?
- What activities are you doing?
- What are you celebrating and how are you celebrating achievements?
- What brings you joy?
Getting specific to future you
One of the non negotiables when writing to the future version of you using the suggestions above, is to be as specific as possible. If you write “I am rich” then what does that mean? That you are making £1 more than you are now? Or £1 million more than now?
Additionally you looking to be as specific as possible to enable your reticular activating system (RAS) for short which is the Google Search Engine of the mind, to assist you in making these specific items a reality, by keeping the best data and resources to funnel to you relevant to your instructions. Instructions include Your Future Self letter, goals, intentions and affirmations.
Set a meaningful timeframe
When writing your letter select a timeframe for how far into the future you want to go. Some people opt for under a year, some a year and some even further. To decide the timeframe that feels right for you, pick one that feels on the edge of what you can conceive of being the future, but not so far that it feels total fantasy.
Write in your own town
You are writing this letter from you to you, and it is meant to be personal. Use language that you use internally when talking to yourself, or your nickname for yourself. When talking about present day you, use “I” language and when writing to the future you, use “you” language.
Deliver your Future self letter
If you are writing this on paper, then you will need to set a reminder to deliver or open the date on the precise date in the future. If you are using a personal development platform such as Futureality, you can write to your future self, select a date using the calendar and your letter will arrive in your inbox on that precise date.