My Experience Writing My Vision for Myself 5 Years from Now to My Future Self.

This weekend I finally completed a written letter to myself detailing where I envision myself in 5 years from now. It was one of the eye opening exercises I have ever done for myself. I have already noticed I’m taking action on the thoughts that had been floating in my head. The exercise was as follows:

• Write a letter to yourself ie Dear Sal Rosales….

• The letter should be handwritten

• Place it in an envelope and seal it

• Open it in 5 years

I had been thinking about what I may write for a few months, therefore, when I finally sat down with a pen, it flowed nicely. I chose to write it outside in my backyard so that I could be in nature. I estimate it took me about an hour to write the one page to myself. I detailed where I see myself in my occupation, some athletic accomplishments I hope to achieve, where I will be living, who I will be with and what it will feel like to achieve these goals. I kept it very simple and straight forward.

The most interesting aspect of doing this was thinking and addressing myself in 1st person. After completing this exercise, I am now a firm believer that you have to love and believe in yourself to accomplish anything, let alone a 5 year set of goals. I analyzed my strengths, weaknesses and to be quite honest, I caught myself encouraging and supporting myself with these goals. Somewhat of a ‘I’ve got your back’ vibe in the letter.

Now what did I write to myself?

As a kid, I’ve always wanted to be intelligent, brave, a world traveler who eats exotic foods, meets people from different lands and discovers adventures, so basically I wanted to be Indiana Jones. The more I travel, the more I appreciate one of his quotes which is “We Do Not Follow Maps To Buried Treasure, And X Never, Ever Marks The Spot.” To me that means I have to leave room for adventure in my 5 year plan and so I did.