Writing to your Future Self

by Suzanne Stengl | Jan 8, 2019 | Miscellaneous Moments

So it’s already the second week of January, and I remain resolution-less. 

I could be making a list and I know all the usual suspects: write more, read more, eat healthy food, drink lots of water. The exercise component has shifted to yoga and floor exercises since I can’t do walking/skiing/line dancing now. Turns out my hip has severe osteoarthritis. I’d really like a new hip but time will tell.

Since I started this blog, I’ve had various approaches to the New Year’s Resolution:

• In the beginning, 2012, I simply listed my resolutions and hoped for the best. New Year’s Resolutions.
• In 2013, I talked about what Smart Goals are, and I made an “Un-Resolution List”.
• For 2014, it was Setting Intentions.
• And then in 2015, although it was not specifically about Resolutions, I looked up the Stages of Exercise.
• I listed some . . . things to do in the New Year . . . for 2016. It was a pretty laissez-faire approach but it seemed to work as well as anything specific.
• The next year, I think I gave up.
• By 2018, I had found A different take on Goal Setting which is to simply not talk about it. The idea is that by stating your goal to the world, you actually decrease your chances of achieving it. The STATING gives you all kinds of approbation before you actually do anything. So, go ahead and make that goal, but don’t announce it. Not until you’ve achieved it.

This year, I’ve found a new approach. Instead of simply making that list, you talk to yourself about what you’d like to do in this new year. Then answer yourself at a later date. At that time, you might get a nudge from your Future Self to try again, or, you might see progress. Often we do make progress, but we don’t notice it because the progression is glacially slow.

Incidentally, my school of nursing motto was Persistent in Progress.

Hamilton and District School of Nursing crest

One way to talk to yourself is to journal.

That’s an ongoing thing and sometimes we don’t take the time to go back and see what we wrote. The progress, if there is any, does not stand out.

Another way to talk to yourself is to write yourself a letter.

And have it delivered to you next January. Or maybe on June 30 at that halfway point of the year. Or maybe even on this date next month.

Of course, there is an app for this. It’s called future me.

You can sign up for free. There’s also a premium option for $3 per year if you don’t want to see ads.

I think I wrote a letter to Me sometime in December. I’m pretty sure I scheduled it to send sometime in January. I wonder what I will be telling Me?

Are you a resolution maker? Do you start off with new optimism each January? Or, do you prefer to remain resolution-less? Do you think a letter from You to You might be motivating, reassuring or even slightly interesting? Will you give it a try?

little girl writing a letter to her future self from Depositphotos #59092059

A different take on Goal Setting

by Suzanne Stengl | Jan 10, 2018 | Miscellaneous Moments

It’s that time of year, so I’m thinking about the traditional New Year’s Resolutions. Obviously, I’m not thinking about them too hard, because we are almost two weeks into the New Year and I haven’t done any concrete “resolving”.  

In other years, I’ve posted about New Year’s Resolutions and Smart Goals and Setting Intentions and basically planning a Good Year. And, while it’s a neat writing exercise, it’s never been a defining moment in my year.

Recently I came across a different way of looking at New Year’s Resolutions, or Goal Setting in general.  Because setting a goal doesn’t only happen in January.

In his 2010 Ted Talk, Derek Sivers talks about goals, and keeping your goals to yourself.

Keeping them to yourself?

In my writing groups, we often set goals at the start of the New Year, or at the end of the old one. We do this because it’s fun, and it’s motivational, and because we think it makes us “accountable”.

However, according to Derek Sivers, talking about your goals does not make you more accountable. In fact, it makes you less accountable.

You can watch the talk here. It’s only about 3 minutes long: Keep your goals to yourself.

Apparently, several tests have demonstrated that TELLING someone your goal makes it less likely for that goal to happen. Who knew?

The study he describes shows you why, and it makes a lot of sense.

But, at the end of each year, I still like doing this round robin thing of naming a goal—of saying my intention out loud to my writing friends. It’s fun, whether or not it works.

Maybe the takeaway is this: Go ahead and tell your friends what your goals are for the New Year. Just don’t talk about any goals that you actually WANT to achieve. Keep those special ones to yourself. 🙂