5 Reasons Why You Should Write a Letter to The Future You
Writing a letter to your future self can be a very interesting activity. It can be great motivational tool that can help you fulfill your personal goals in life. It’s a remarkable way to take stock of things happening in your life. This self enhancement tool if done with the right perspective will not only boost your morale but will also inspire you to move on in life.
Before you begin to write ask a few basic questions to yourself. Who would I like to be in the next few years? What is the time frame that I give myself? What area of my life do I need to improve? These are some of the basic questions. You could add more to the list to give you more clarity. The more specific your questions are the more specific your answers will be.
1. It Awakens You to Your Life Goals
Writing a letter to yourself moves you to action. It is a wakeup call to yourself. If you have lost your zeal or passion towards your life goals, this exercise will throw the search light within you. It will make you sit up and ponder over where you are and where you would like to be. Clarity in life can increase a sense of purpose and create hopefulness. Hopefulness always gives birth to positive actions and positive action in turn results in successful living.
2. Helps to Evaluate Your Current Status
This is a very personal activity and hence you can do it with utmost honesty and sincerity. Evaluate yourself objectively. Being honest with one’s self is an essential trait found in a successful person. This is a truth that been proved time and again in the lives of people who are genuine and successful. Development happens when a person begins to take honest assessment of himself or herself. Writing a letter is one of the best ways to do so.
It’s amazing yet true, that when you stop to take a look at yourself, you realize that you have long way to go. A person who has a purpose or goal in life will obviously not want to stagnate but want to move on and progress, both professionally and personally.
3. Helps You to Assess Your Strength and Work on Your Weakness
It is amazing how a simple task such as writing a letter can be a great assessment tool. This exercise will enable you to precisely review your strengths and weakness. This is a good time to make a SWOT analysis of your life. Use your strengths to get to your destiny. Work on your weaknesses and turn them into strengths too.
4. Helps Set Time Frame
Every time you write a letter it would have a time frame. Say for example, you write a letter to your ‘future self’, five years from now. So, you are addressing an individual who is five years more mature than you now are.
A future letter to one’s own self with a stipulated time frame, should be addressed to a person say for example, with a particular designation, profession and even a particular position in your personal life. If you are a student aspiring to be a teacher you could write a letter to your future self as teacher, a young executive could address his or her future self as a manager, a married person could address his or herself as a better spouse, those with children as better parents and the list goes on.
5. It’s A Good Way to Encourage Yourself
Writing a letter to your future self is a good way to perk up your spirit, especially when you are feeling low. As you go about with the mundane things of life, boredom can creep in, resulting in stagnation of life. As you write you will have to answer so many questions to your own self. Hence the task itself can be a propelling force that drives you closer to your dreams.
In an age where the writing a letter is a forgotten art, writing to yourself can be one of the most quirky and fun things to do. It is one of those unusual activities that not only lightens your heart and brightens your spirit but it also gives a deeper insight in yourself and your life.
A well written letter can not only create your future can also result in a well lived life as well.