Writing to your future self is an old idea: time capsules, letters to open in ten years. There's a twist that makes it more useful. Don't only write to your future self. Let them write back.
It sounds like a game, and in a way it is. But it is a game with research behind it, and it takes about twenty minutes.
Why a letter helps
Many people feel only loosely connected to the person they'll be in the future, and that gap is linked to more short-term choices. Researchers call the feeling of connection future self-continuity. (We explain the background in your future self feels like a stranger.)
Letters are one of the simplest ways to make that future person more vivid. In a study by Jean-Louis van Gelder, Hal Hershfield and Loran Nordgren, participants who wrote a letter to their future self were afterward less inclined to make delinquent choices than participants in a control condition.1
A later study took it further with a two-way exchange. Psychologists Yuta Chishima and Anne Wilson asked students to write a letter to their future self and then reply as that future self. Students randomly assigned to the full exchange showed bigger increases in future self-continuity, career planning and willingness to delay gratification for academic goals than students who only sent a letter.2
The researchers' explanation: answering as your future self forces you to take their perspective. You stop looking at them from the outside.
Step by step
Set aside twenty minutes. Paper works well, but anything you can write in is fine.
Part 1: write to your future self
- Pick a distance. Five, ten or twenty years. Far enough for real change; near enough to imagine.
- Say where you are now. What matters to you this year? What are you working on, worried about, hoping for?
- Ask real questions. Did we make the move? What was hard about it? What do you wish I'd started earlier? What turned out not to matter?
Part 2: reply as your future self
Take a short break. Then write back, as the person you've become.
- Write from inside their life. Use the present tense for their world: "I'm writing this from the kitchen of the house by the river." Add ordinary details: a sound, a routine, a person nearby.
- Answer the questions honestly. Your future self has the benefit of distance. What would they tell you about the things you're worrying about now?
- Be kind and specific. Future selves tend to be warmer than our inner critic. Let them be.
- End with one piece of advice for this week. Something small and concrete, a next step you can take in the next few days.
Part 3: read it once more
Read both letters, then note the one sentence that stood out. Keep it somewhere you'll see it.
Prompts if you get stuck
- What does an ordinary Tuesday look like for you now?
- What did you stop doing that made life better?
- Which fear turned out to be smaller than it looked?
- What do you want me to protect, no matter what?
Make it a practice, not a one-off
A single letter can be moving. But the gap between present and future self tends to drift back. Some people write a new exchange every birthday or every new year. Others keep a running habit: a short, regular moment of speaking or writing from the future they're building.
The takeaway
Writing to your future self is good. Letting them answer is better. Twenty minutes, two letters, and one sentence of advice for this week. That's enough to make the person you're becoming feel a little more like you. If you want to turn that advice into action, try writing it as an if-then plan.
Sources
- van Gelder, J.-L., Hershfield, H. E., & Nordgren, L. F. (2013). Vividness of the future self predicts delinquency. Psychological Science, 24(6), 974–980. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612465197 ↩
- Chishima, Y., & Wilson, A. E. (2021). Conversation with a future self: A letter-exchange exercise enhances student self-continuity, career planning, and academic thinking. Self and Identity, 20(5), 646–671. https://doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2020.1754283 ↩