Imagine opening your inbox on an ordinary Tuesday and finding a message from someone who knows you better than anyone — your past self. They remember what you were worried about, what you were hoping for, and what made you laugh on a random Wednesday six months ago.

That's what it feels like to receive a letter from your past self. It's strange and familiar all at once. Some people cry. Some people laugh. Almost everyone writes another one.

We've helped over 160,000 people send letters to their future selves over the past decade. Some write pages. Some write a single sentence. Every one of them gets a small, private moment of connection with who they used to be.

This guide will help you write yours.

Why Write a Letter to Your Future Self?

There are plenty of ways to reflect on your life — journaling, therapy, meditation. But writing a letter to your future self does something different. It creates a conversation across time. You're not just writing down your thoughts; you're sending them somewhere, to someone. That someone just happens to be you.

Here's why people find it so powerful:

It captures who you really are right now. Memory is unreliable. You'll forget how you felt about your job, your relationship, your daily life. A letter freezes a version of you in time — not the version you'll remember, but the version you actually were.

It puts your problems in perspective. When you read a letter from a year ago, something surprising happens: most of the things you were stressed about no longer matter. That deadline, that argument, that thing keeping you up at night — it resolved itself, or you handled it, or it simply faded. Seeing that pattern again and again changes how you relate to today's problems.

It helps you notice growth you'd otherwise miss. Change happens so gradually that you rarely see it in yourself. But when past-you writes "I hope I've finally learned to say no" and present-you realises — actually, yes, you have — that's a kind of self-awareness you can't get any other way.

It makes goal-setting feel personal. Goals written in a planner feel like tasks. Goals written in a letter to yourself feel like promises. There's a warmth to it, a gentleness, that makes you want to follow through — not out of pressure, but out of care for the person you're becoming.

When to Write Your Letter (And When to Send It)

You can write a letter to your future self at any time, but certain moments tend to create especially meaningful letters:

• New Year's Day — the classic. Write to yourself on the last day of the year, and receive it the following December. It becomes a personal time capsule of the entire year.
• Your birthday — a letter from last-birthday-you is a surprisingly emotional gift to yourself.
• The start of a school year or new job — capture the nerves, the excitement, the "I have no idea what I'm doing" energy. Future-you will appreciate the reminder.
• After something significant happens — a breakup, a promotion, a loss, a win. Write while the feelings are still raw. You'll want to remember what it really felt like, not the softened version your memory will create later.

As for how far in the future to send it: the most popular choice among our users is one year. But there's no right answer. A week is long enough for a perspective shift. Ten years is long enough for a completely different life. Choose the timeframe that feels meaningful for what you want to say.

How to Write Your Letter: A Step-by-Step Guide

There's no wrong way to write a letter to your future self. But if you're staring at a blank page and wondering where to begin, here's a simple structure that works.

Step 1: Set the Scene

Start with the basics. What's the date? Where are you sitting right now? What's the weather like outside? What song is stuck in your head?

This sounds trivial, but it's the stuff you'll forget first — and the stuff that will transport you back most vividly when you read the letter later. The specifics are what make it feel real.

"It's a rainy Thursday in November. I'm sitting at the kitchen table with a cup of tea that's gone cold because I keep forgetting about it. The dog is asleep on my feet."

Step 2: Describe Your Life Right Now

Not the Instagram version. The real one. What does a normal day look like? How do you spend your time? Who are the people around you? What are you reading, watching, listening to?

Try to capture the texture of your daily life — the mundane things that feel unremarkable now but will feel like a time capsule later.

"I'm working at the bookshop four days a week and spending my days off trying to figure out what I actually want to do next. I eat the same lunch every day — which you probably still do, knowing us."

Step 3: Share Your Hopes and Fears

This is where it gets real. What are you hoping for? What are you afraid of? What's the thing you think about at 2am when you can't sleep?

Be honest. Nobody else will ever read this. You're talking to yourself — the one person you can't fool anyway.

"I'm scared that I'm wasting time. That everyone else has figured something out that I haven't. But I'm also hopeful in a way I can't quite explain — like something good is coming, even though I don't know what it is yet."

Step 4: Set Goals and Intentions

Not a to-do list. Not "lose 10 pounds and learn Spanish." Think about the kind of person you want to be when you read this letter. What matters to you? What do you want to have changed — not achieved, but changed?

"I want to be less afraid of saying what I think. I want to have started that project I keep putting off. I want to be the kind of person who calls their friends back instead of just thinking about it."

Step 5: Ask Your Future Self Questions

Turn the letter into a conversation. Ask questions that you genuinely want to know the answers to. When you read the letter later, you'll find yourself answering them — and the answers might surprise you.

"Did you ever finish that book you were writing? Are you still friends with Sam? Do you still drink too much coffee? Did you figure out the thing with Mum?"

Step 6: End with Kindness

Close your letter the way you'd close a letter to someone you love — because that's exactly what this is. Be generous with yourself. Future-you might need to hear it.

"Whatever's happening when you read this — I hope you're being kind to yourself. You deserve that. You always did, even when you didn't believe it."

20 Prompts to Get You Started

If you'd rather jump straight into writing, here are 20 prompts to spark ideas. You don't need to answer all of them — pick the ones that pull at you.

About Your Present

• What does a typical day look like for you right now?
• What's the best thing that's happened to you recently?
• What are you struggling with at the moment?
• What's something you're proud of that nobody else knows about?
• Describe your life in three words right now.

About Your Goals and Dreams

• What's one thing you hope will be different when you read this?
• What's a dream you're afraid to say out loud?
• What's a habit you're trying to build (or break)?
• If you could change one thing about your life tomorrow, what would it be?
• What does your ideal ordinary day look like a year from now?

About Your Relationships

• Who are the most important people in your life right now?
• Is there a relationship you want to be closer in? One you need distance from?
• What's something you wish you could say to someone but haven't?
• Who has surprised you recently — in a good way or a bad way?
• What kind of friend, partner, or family member do you want to be?

Fun Predictions and Questions

• What do you think will be the biggest change in your life by the time you read this?
• Name something you're obsessed with right now that you think you'll have forgotten about.
• Make a prediction about the world — anything. Politics, sport, culture, your neighbourhood.
• What's the funniest thing that's happened to you this week?
• If future-you could send one message back, what do you think they'd say?

Letter to Your Future Self: 3 Examples

Not sure what yours might look like? Here are three short examples to give you a feel for different styles. Every one of these is a valid letter.

The New Year's Reflection

The Student Letter

The Personal Growth Letter

What to Do When You Receive Your Letter

Read it somewhere quiet. Don't open it on the bus or between meetings. Give yourself a few minutes of undivided attention. This is a conversation with someone who cared enough to write to you — treat it that way.

Let yourself feel whatever comes up. Some letters make you laugh. Some make you cringe. Some hit harder than you expected. There's no correct emotional response. Whatever you feel is the right thing to feel.

Notice what changed — and what didn't. The most interesting part of reading an old letter isn't the dramatic life changes. It's realising which worries disappeared on their own, which goals you quietly achieved without noticing, and which parts of you stayed exactly the same.

Write another one. The best time to write your next letter is right after you've read your last one. You're already in the right headspace — reflective, honest, a little emotional. The conversation doesn't have to end. In fact, it gets richer every time.

Your Letter Doesn't Have to Be Long

Here's something we've learned from a decade of helping people write future letters: most people write short ones. And that's not a compromise — it's often the point.

A letter to your future self doesn't need to be a multi-page essay. Some of the most powerful letters are just a few lines. What matters isn't the length. It's the act of pausing, noticing where you are, and sending that small capsule of yourself into the future.

Here are some of the ways people use short letters — each one takes less than two minutes to write:

Celebrating a win. You just got the promotion. You passed the exam. You finally had the conversation you'd been putting off for months. Write it down in a sentence or two and send it to yourself a month from now. When it arrives, you'll remember not just that it happened, but how it felt — the relief, the pride, the disbelief. We forget the texture of our good moments faster than we think.

Putting struggles in perspective. Write about whatever's stressing you out right now — the work deadline, the friendship tension, the money worry. Send it to yourself in a month. When it arrives, there's a good chance you'll have forgotten about it entirely. And that's the lesson: most of the things that consume your mental energy today won't matter in a few weeks. Seeing that pattern in your own words, over and over, genuinely changes how you carry stress.

A single question to your future self. Sometimes all you need is one line. "Did you start?" "Are you still together?" "Did it work out?" There's something powerful about the simplicity — future-you will know exactly what you meant.

A weekly or monthly check-in. Not a big emotional letter. Just a quick snapshot. What's your mood? What are you reading? Who did you spend time with this week? String a few of these together over a year and you'll have something more honest than any diary — because you weren't writing for an audience, not even yourself in the moment.

A pep talk before something hard. Got an exam next week? A difficult conversation coming up? A job interview? Write a quick note of encouragement and schedule it for the night before. It's like leaving a sticky note from the version of yourself who isn't nervous yet.

The point isn't word count. The point is the moment — the pause, the honesty, the small act of caring about the person you'll be tomorrow or next month or next year. A single sentence can do that just as well as a thousand words.

Tips for Writing a Letter That Will Move You

You don't need to be a good writer to write a meaningful letter. You just need to be honest. Here are a few things we've seen that make the difference:

Be specific, not general. "I hope things are better" means nothing when you read it later. "I hope you stopped checking your phone first thing in the morning" means everything. The more specific you are, the more powerfully your letter will land. This applies whether your letter is a full page or a single line.

Write as if nobody will ever read it. Because nobody will — except you. The letters that move people are the ones where they stopped performing and started being honest. Drop the inspirational tone. Write the way you actually think and talk.

Don't just write about what you want. Write about what you feel. Goals are useful, but feelings are what make a letter come alive. How does your body feel right now? What emotion are you carrying today that you usually push aside? That's the stuff future-you will want to know about.

Include the mundane. The name of the barista who remembers your order. The shortcut you take on your walk home. The show you're bingeing. These details evaporate from memory within weeks, and they're exactly the ones that will make you smile later.

Don't try to be wise. You don't need to have figured anything out. Some of the best letters are confused, uncertain, messy. That's not a flaw. That's what makes them real. Future-you doesn't need advice from past-you. They need to remember who past-you actually was.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long should my letter be?
As long or as short as you want. A single sentence counts. So does five pages. Most people write somewhere between a paragraph and a page, but there's genuinely no wrong length. The act of writing matters more than the word count.

When should I send my letter?
The most popular choice is one year, but it depends on what you're writing about. A quick pep talk might be best sent in a week. A New Year's reflection works at 12 months. A big life moment might deserve a 5- or 10-year delay. Go with whatever feels right for what you want to say.

Can I edit my letter after I've sent it?
With a free account, letters are locked in once you send them — which is part of the magic. Premium users can edit, reschedule, or delete their scheduled letters if they need to.

Is my letter private?
Completely. Letters are stored encrypted. Nobody can read what you've written — not us, not anyone else. Your words are between you and your future self.

Can I send a letter to someone else?
The service is designed for writing to yourself, but you can enter any email address. Some people send letters to friends, partners, or family members to arrive on a birthday or anniversary.

What if my email address changes before the letter arrives?
It's a good idea to use an email address you're likely to keep. If you have a premium account, you can update your email address or reschedule delivery before the letter sends.

I don't know what to write. Is that normal?
Completely. Start with the prompts in this guide, or just describe what you had for breakfast and how you're feeling right now. Some of the most powerful letters start with "I don't even know what to write, but..." You'd be surprised where that takes you.