For the past few years, I’ve been doing something that started almost as an experiment and slowly became one of my favorite end-of-year rituals: I write a letter to myself. A letter for a future version of me. Sometimes a year ahead, sometimes three, sometimes five.
There’s something strangely powerful about sending a message to someone who doesn’t exist yet. Not to predict anything, but to capture the present before it fades. We think we remember our lives, but mostly we remember events. What gets lost is the texture: our energy, our doubts, our subtle realizations, the questions that shaped us quietly.
A letter freezes that.
A small snapshot of awareness.
And awareness, like everything that truly matters, compounds.
When a letter from my past self arrives, I almost never remember writing it. And that’s the magic. I get to see what mattered to me then, what I was trying to grow into, what felt heavy, what I didn’t yet understand. I also get to see the things that ended up moving forward without me noticing. It’s gentle proof of something I repeat often: identity isn’t something you switch — it’s something you grow into.
If you want to try it, you don’t need a template or deep insights. You just need honesty. Three questions usually help me begin:
Where am I right now — truly?
Not the public version. The internal one: energy, clarity, fears, momentum, confusion.
Who am I becoming?
Not goals. Identity. The version of you that you hope to be living as in a few years.
What do I want my future self to remember?
Something simple. Something true. Something time might bury under noise.
That’s it. Write, send, release.
I use FutureMe (futureme.org) — you choose when the letter returns… and then you forget it until it lands, usually at the exact moment you need perspective.
Time moves quickly. Awareness slows it down. A letter to your future self is just a way to underline who you were becoming — right before the next version of you took the lead.
If you try it this year, I hope it gives you what it always gives me: a soft reminder that growth isn’t loud, but it’s always happening.
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I’m Gregorio Sanchez, founder of The Compound Life and father of four daughters. I write about how small daily choices in health, mindset, and productivity compound into clarity and purpose.
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