A Letter to Your Future Self asks each person to write a short, private letter to the person they’ll be in a few months’ time. They seal it in an envelope addressed to themselves, you keep the letters safe, and you post them back three or six months later. When the letter lands on their doormat, it’s a reminder of what they learned, what they hoped for and what they promised themselves.
It works well at the end of training courses, leadership programmes, retreats and team away days: any session where you want people to carry something forward once the energy of the day has faded. It’s quiet and personal, so it also suits groups who’ve done a lot of talking and need some time to think. To give the letter more focus, run it straight after a reflection such as the 3-2-1 Reflection.
Method
Set the scene, give everyone time to write in silence, then collect the sealed envelopes. Put a reminder in your diary and post the letters on the date you agreed.
Step 1: Decide when the letters will arrive
Choose a date before the session. Three months is long enough for the letter to feel like a surprise, while six months suits bigger changes, such as a new role or a year-long programme. Tell the group when to expect their letter, so nobody mistakes it for junk mail.
Step 2: Set the scene
Explain that the letter is private: nobody, including you, will read it. Offer a few prompts on a slide or flipchart, for example ‘What do I want to remember from today?’, ‘What am I going to try, and how will I know it’s working?’, ‘What might get in the way?’ and ‘What would I like to say to myself when things get busy?’. People can use the prompts or ignore them.
Step 3: Write in silence
Give people 10 to 15 minutes. Play quiet music if the room feels awkward without it, and let people find a comfortable spot to write. Encourage them to write in their own voice, as if to a friend, and to be specific: ‘I’ll book a one-to-one with each person in my team by the end of March’ is far more useful than ‘be a better manager’.
Step 4: Seal and address the envelopes
Ask everyone to seal their letter and write their own name and address on the envelope. Collect the envelopes and keep them somewhere secure until it’s time to post them.
Step 5: Post the letters
Put the posting date in your diary as soon as the session ends, then add stamps and post the letters on the day you agreed. A week later, you could send the group a short message inviting anyone who’d like to share how they’re getting on.
Outcome
Each person leaves with a commitment in their own words, and gets a timely reminder of it months later, just as the good intentions from the workshop have started to fade. Many people find the letter more powerful than any follow-up email, because it comes from themselves.
Tips for Facilitators
- Promise privacy and keep it: never open, read or photograph the letters. When people trust that, they write more honestly.
- Handle addresses with care: addresses are personal data. Let people write them on the envelope themselves rather than collecting a list, keep the envelopes locked away, and use them only to post the letters.
- Give people a choice: not everyone wants post sent to their home. Offer to post the letter to a work address instead, or to hand it back at a follow-up session.
- Write one yourself: joining in shows that you take the activity seriously, and gives you a reminder of your own.
- Budget for postage: check the cost of stamps for the number of letters, and agree who’s paying before the session.
Variations
- Postcard to yourself: for a shorter session, swap the letter for a postcard with three short prompts. It takes five minutes and costs less to post.
- Keep, stop, start: ask people to write one paragraph about what they’ll keep doing, one about what they’ll stop and one about what they’ll start, in the spirit of Start, Stop, Continue.
- A card to keep, a letter to post: people write a single action on a card they take home, using One Thing I’ll Do Differently, and put the fuller letter in the post.
- After a lifeline: run a Personal Lifeline first, then ask people to write about where they’d like the line to go next.
Accessibility and Online Sessions
Writing by hand isn’t comfortable for everyone. Let people type their letter on a phone or laptop and print it, record a voice note, or draw instead of writing. Read the prompts aloud as well as showing them, and give extra time to anyone who needs it.
Online, ask people to write their letter as an email to themselves and schedule it to send on the agreed date. Most email services can schedule a message, and the letter stays completely private, because it never passes through you.
