The Letter

This week, I did something I’ve never done before.

I wrote a letter to myself.

Not a list of goals.
Not a vision board.
Not a set of targets broken down by quarter.

A story.

Addressed to the fifty year old me.

I didn’t write it because I’m unhappy with where I am now.

I wrote it because I care deeply about where I’m heading and what living this life actually means.

There’s a difference.

I’ve learned over time that self-talk is one of the most powerful tools we have.

I became very aware of that rowing across an ocean alone.

When it’s just you, hour after hour, your thoughts get loud.  They need to be heard.

Thoughts aren’t real - speaking them or writing them down makes them so.

Doing this creates an external dialogue that invites you to answer.

What are you afraid of?
What do you keep putting off?
What are you quietly hoping will sort itself out?

The mind is busy but when you slow things down enough to listen, you get to test your own thinking.

To challenge it and to support it.

Writing the letter did exactly that.

It forced me to imagine where I hope to be in five years.

Not in terms of applause or output, but in terms of how my life feels at that exact moment.

How I might feel about the man I am and the man I have become.

Half a century lived.

Time still to change course and push on or time to stay very still and settle in.

It made me confront something important.

If my forties have been a sprint uphill - building businesses, creating change, putting others first, then my fifties can’t look the same.

They need to be slower.

Doing less but better.

Knowing I’ve lived more days than I have left to live.

That realisation doesn’t come from setting bigger goals.

It comes from asking better questions.

Writing to your future self creates a quiet form of accountability.

Not the kind that shouts at you.

The kind that sharpens your choices now.

Because once you’ve written down what you hope your life looks like later, it becomes much harder to ignore the decisions you’re making today.

I printed the letter.

Addressed it to me.

It lives in the top drawer of my desk.

I’ll open it on my fiftieth birthday.  August 2030.

Between now and then, it sits there quietly, silently doing its work.

Before we go any further, let’s pause for a moment and debrief together:

If you were to write a letter to yourself five years from now, where would you hope to be?

Not what you would own.
Not what would you be known for.

But where would you be spending your time?
Who would still be close?
What would you want more of and less of?

What does happiness and fulfillment look like?

No judgement.
Just honesty.

Your mission this week (if you choose to accept it):

Have a conversation with yourself. 

Write that letter.  Speak your thoughts out loud.

Choose a time far enough away that it forces you to think differently.

Five years works well.

Don’t make it perfect.

Don’t make it impressive.

Make it true.

Then put it somewhere safe.

Somewhere private.

Let it guide your decisions quietly from now on.

That’s enough for now.
More next Sunday.

Mike
Hold the line. Do the hard things.