Imagine for a minute that you have a crystal clear vision and dream for your future. To create change in your life, it can really help to be able to picture what the end game is!

Do you dream of what you want? Can you imagine your life the way you think it should be lived? This can be easy for some people and downright impossible for others. 

Having coached and talked to many women in mid-life transition, it is common to find that women have lost sight of their vision for themselves, beyond their roles as a caregiver, career warrior, wife, mother, etc. At some point in life, they have lost sight that there is so much more possibility in life awaiting them. 

When I was in my late 40s, I was having a conversation with a good friend and mentor, and it became clear to me that I had lost my sense of a bigger brighter future for myself The reality I was experiencing at the time was very bleak: my father had just died, my mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, my siblings were going through significant relationship breakdowns and I was in a job I didn’t enjoy and in an industry that did not align with my values. 

This lack of vision left me feeling depressed, or perhaps I lost my vision because I was depressed. Chicken or the egg?

None of us can predict the future. A too rigid view of our future can leave us vulnerable to missing opportunities and chances that life offers us, and wasting energy on the relentless pursuit of a narrow goal. 

Too little vision and we feel lost, and not knowing where we are going and potentially depressed.  A general sense of the sort of life we want to be leading and the direction we are travelling in is a happy medium for most people. For me, it has been useful to think about how I want to feel and show up in my life rather than think about achievements as goals. I spent the first half of my life judging my self-worth by what I was achieving and I am still working on leaving that unhelpful behaviour behind. By giving voice to my friend of a “wacky dream” that I had to take a group of like-minded women into the mountains of Montana to learn about themselves, ride horses, learn horsemanship from the cowboys and hike the wilderness, led to me realizing this dream a couple of years later with my first Wise Women Ride trip to the USA in 2017. This pursuit was life-changing. 

A Letter From the Future

If you are a person who has difficulty having a hope or dream for themselves then I invite you to try this simple and powerful activity. By writing a letter from your future self, you can tap into the things that are important to you and it can help you to work out what your values are and where you want to be in life.

This exercise will prime your self conscious to notice opportunities that come your way! 

How to:

Choose a date some months or years from now- pick a significant date or milestone e.g. a birthday. 

Imagine your life has gone rather well and things have turned out the way you wanted them to. 

Write yourself a letter telling you about the developments in your life. Try to imagine how your life would feel if you were successful and fulfilled and content. As you write your letter, allow yourself to look at all aspects of your life. Looking to the future is a hopeful thing to do, and by writing yourself a letter from the future you are encouraging yourself to make very explicit about the hopes and dreams you have for yourself. You breathe life into them. You pull them from deep in your subconscious mind and into your conscious reality. You might be surprised what you find in there. 

The letter from the future is for you. You can use it to explore any aspect of your life. Write without censoring yourself. Speak deeply from the heart. Allow the unsaid to be know. Tap into your deepest emotional self. 

Of course, having a dream does not make it a reality but it is the very first and most essential starting point for change. Your letter might just contain a glimpse of a dream for your future.

I’d love to hear your comments on how this activity went for you! Comment below.