Letter from the future

Hello and welcome to the final week of my Advent Calendar of Change; 12 bite-sized exercises from my new book?Swim Jump Fly: A Guide to Changing Your Life . As we’re at the end of 2022 I’ll finish with stories?about the year ahead.?

The end of the year can be a time full of contrasts - busyness and quiet, joy and sadness, satiation and longing, and, if you live in the northern hemisphere, the longest of nights and the shortest of days.?

Other animals hibernate through the cold and the dark, but we keep going with electric light and oversized portions of sugar and carbohydrate. Great news then (for those in the north) that the shortest day of the year has now passed. From the 21st?of December we’ll experience a few more minutes of light every day, all the way up to the longest day of the year, the 21st?of June.?

Despite travelling towards the light, we might have narratives that are inky black right now. Voices in our heads that are set on a gloom-loop. So, if you’re thinking about the year ahead and your narrative is a negative or anxious one, don’t worry, you’re not alone.?

When I was writing my book?Swim Jump Fly, I spoke to a number of coaching colleagues about how our stories can hold their clients back. One coach shared this about a client, someone who often felt stuck due to narratives in their head. The coach called these?Postcards of Future Unhappiness?- the way her client predicted that the future wouldn’t be very good, often without much evidence to back it up.?

The client would say this about the future: “What if I get there and don’t like it? What’s the point? I’ve never been happy when I get what I want.” This is what the coach said to me: “My client has what I’d call ‘anticipatory dissatisfaction’” -?predicting future unhappiness like a fortune cookie.?

Perhaps this is how you feel about 2023? Like unwrapping a negative fortune cookie. The last few years have been extremely challenging and next year could be just the same. Alternatively, we can remind ourselves that past performance doesn’t always predict future performance. We could create a postcard of future happiness.?

For our final exercise of the year, why not write yourself a postcard (or letter) from the future? A way of imagining a positive year ahead. It could be a way to start the year off well.?

A letter from the future:

1) Take a moment to dream about your year ahead. Imagine it’s going well – that you’ve already successfully completed a number of goals you’d like to achieve. The year is turning out to be so much better than the last.?

2) Next, I’m going to ask you to write yourself a letter. But first, why not ask yourself some of these questions, they’ll give you some more detail to go into your letter:?

·??????What is your life like at this point?

·??????What are you thinking or feeling about that is different from 2022?

·??????How is this year better than 2022?

·??????What do you think helped you get to this better place??

·??????What you have learned and how have you grown as a person?

·??????Overall, what message would you like to give your younger self (the one who hasn’t achieved these things yet)??

3) Now write all of this into a letter to yourself on your laptop or, if you prefer, on paper. Then file it away for a rainy day. When you need a boost, take out your letter and read it again.?

That’s change nugget number twelve from my newly published book If you’d like?help to start or sustain a change, then click here for the UK:?Swim Jump Fly: A Guide to Changing Your Life ?or for other countries simply type in Swim Jump Fly book into your local Amazon site.?

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Whilst you’re here, why not have a mooch at my other stuff – the blogs, the podcast and other bits and pieces.?You can find them on this?link .?All cartoons by Simon Pearsall.