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The best way to predict the future is to invent it. ─ Alan Kay
There is another technique to help us make a better decision in developing and moving our career forward. You have two choices regarding your future: you can wait for it to happen, or you can invent it and then work to achieve it. In this blog we will look a technique that will help you create your desired future: The “Letter to the Future”. The “Letter to the Future” is your own personal north star. Once you have articulated what you want as clearly as possible, it will serve as a guide, and draw you towards it. To write your own “Letter to the Future,” pick a time ─ 5, 10, 15 years from now, or any length ─ longer or shorter that is meaningful to you. Date the top of the letter with that future date. Imagine the intervening years have passed and you are writing to a friend (pick someone you know, like and feel comfortable talking to about your career). Use the friend’s name in the salutation, as “Dear Terrye” (friend’s name) or if you prefer, pick some other supportive person to whom you can comfortably imagine writing about your vision of the future.
Writing the letter from the future will feel strange at first. Most people get a feeling of intense improbability because writing about the future in the past tense just does not make sense. However, as you progress in writing your letter, it will feel more and more comfortable. Amazingly, most people find that by the time they finish their letter, usually a part of what they need to do and how to make those changes, becomes much clearer. In other words, we usually have more of the answer than we think we do. Writing the letter from the future helps us tap into some of our own personal but hidden wisdom.
The purpose of dating the letter and writing it to someone you actually know is to strengthen the psychological realism of the letter. Imagine in this future you have successfully resolved the current changes, transitions and uncertainty in your life. Describe what your ideal career would look like and how you got there. In other words, at the time of the letter writing, you are living a wonderful, joyous, healthy, satisfying life. Alternatively, you can describe how you are spending your time, starting with getting up in the morning to where you are living, and/or what your relationships are like. Lastly, it is a good idea to update your letter to the future periodically and see where it is the same and where it has changed.
