Wednesday, June 27, 2012

A Letter to Your Future Self

Write down your goals. Keep them visible.

Those two sentences have been repeated countless times in literature on goal setting. My own variation on that theme came when I wrote my Christmas letter the preceding January. I re-read it every month, and was amazed as how what was written in January came to pass by December. I wrote about that experience in a post called Christmas Letters from the Future.

My suggestion on how to make that letter re-surface each month is:
  • If your to-do list is digital, make reading your letter a repeating task, and put the body of the letter in the note section of the task.
  • If your to-do list is paper, put the letter in your tickler file. When it re-surfaces, read it and re-file it for a month down the road.

FutureMe.org is a website I saw which accomplishes much the same purpose. You write your letter, provide the date on which you would like to see it again, and enter your e-mail address. On the appointed date, the letter arrives in your e-mail. From there, you can copy and paste the letter back into the website and select a new date.

Whatever your method, the main idea is to envision your preferred future, review that vision periodically, and "adjust the sails." Little-by-little, your performance begins to resemble your vision.

How do YOU keep your goals on tracks? I would love to hear your thoughts.

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