Write A Letter To Your Future Self About Covid-19 Quarantine

Humans are forgetful, and that's totally okay. We're actually supposed to be. Isn't that interesting? There was a study back in like 2007 that was done at the Stanford University in California, and it found that basically your brain only remembers what it's supposed to remember, only the most relevant stuff that it thinks that you're gonna need again because it doesn't want you to get confused and and it doesn't want you to be overwhelmed, which is like very nice of your brain. But guess what? You might forget something really important. And I'm gonna give you a couple of ideas today to be able to make sure that you remember things that you actually care about, that you want to tell your future self. And one of the ways to do that is to actually write yourself a letter, right? And it's something that I've done in the past and that I do talk about in my book, Listful Living. I find it to be a really, really great tool. And I was just thinking about it yesterday because I was at a networking meeting with a bunch of wonderful women, and one of them said, you know, I want to make sure that I really— I don't forget and that I appreciate the little things when we go back to life as normal, right? So after COVID-19 has passed, our lives are gonna look very, very different, and we will forget that things like going to the bank or shaking someone's hand or getting your hair cut. Those are luxuries, right? We don't do that right now. And so to be able to actually remember and stick yourself in this moment so that in the future when you are able to do all those things and they become like no big deal again, you'll actually remember it. And I did this, uh, about maybe 2 or 3 years ago when I was thinking of leaving corporate America. So I was a TV producer for a very long time. I was most recently a senior health producer at Fox News Channel, and I loved working there. I had a great time. It was a wonderful career until it wasn't, until I thought, "Oh, you know what? There's something else out there for me." And so now, you know, I run my own business as a media trainer and coach and author and speaker. And I really wanted to go out on my own. And so one day I remember sitting at lunch. I was outside in Midtown Manhattan, and I went and I sat down and I thought, "You know, I really hope in a year from now I'm not still here." Because if I'm still here working at the same job that I've been at for, you know, over a decade, what am I doing? So I wrote myself a letter, an email, and I wrote down everything I was feeling that day, like my exact emotions in that moment, because I knew I would forget. I knew life would happen and things would move on and it would be, "Oh, no big deal," again. But I wanted to remember. And so I sent that email to myself. I used a tool called Boomerang. For Gmail. Totally forgot that I had sent it, but a year later I got it. And guess what? I had given my notice and I was leaving and I was scared and I was unsure if I was making the right move. But getting that letter from myself was just an amazing nudge to say, you are doing the right thing. Remember how you felt back then? You wanted this so badly and now you have it, right? So I'm inviting everybody to create this same kind of letter, right? So I suggested this actually to the networking group yesterday and everybody loved the idea. So I thought, you know what, I'm going to share this around because I think it'll be really fun. So set a timer for 15 minutes at some point today and just think about all of the things that you're missing, right? Whether it be, you know, going for a car wash, you know, going into a restaurant and sitting down, sitting at a bar, any of those things that, you know, used to be like these mundane things that we did and it was no big deal. And now, uh, it's be much, much different. So just, you know, stream of consciousness, just write a letter to yourself in a year and think about all the things that you want to remember to appreciate. What are those things that you're missing so much because you're home or you're not able to hug someone or be around them or celebrate a birthday, right? There was a lot of birthdays. My mother celebrated her 70th birthday and we had to celebrate over Zoom, which I know happened to a lot of people, but that's not exactly what you want, right? So Think about that. Think about what are all the things that I want to remember from this time? You know, were there some good ideas that popped up that you thought, you know what, one day I'll do that. Remind yourself that you want to do that. Remind yourself how you feel. Maybe you're thinking, you know, my husband and I are thinking about do we want to, you know, live in a small apartment anymore? Maybe we don't. But you know what, our lives will get back to normal and we'll forget. So I want to remember this feeling right now, this feeling of Boy, I wish I had my own office. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to close the door and not just have to sit here at my kitchen table? So think about that and don't edit yourself. This is not supposed to be like the most perfect letter ever. This is your thoughts. This is how you feel. Allow yourself to feel it. Write it down. Just, just get it out and then schedule it. So I would suggest scheduling it one year from today. Have it sent around this time. So that you can really see what's changed in a year. A lot can change, clearly, right? If we had done this last year, we wouldn't have been in this position right now, right? You would have been saying, "Wait a minute, you're living in a sci-fi movie right now." But it's just interesting to be able to see this and do it. Maybe ask some of your friends if they want to do it too, so you can all have this as an accountability kind of project. But you don't want to forget. Our brains want us to forget because it's, it's good for us. We don't actually need some of this information, right? So, but I want you to really, really focus on what you're going to be grateful for, what you're most excited to do, right? Sitting on a plane, I'm— I can't wait till I'm able to do that again. That'll be amazing. So if you go to listproducer.com/starterkit, I have all kinds of things like this as far as productivity and living your best life and being able to put the right things on your list. Because the idea here is that once you do write this letter to yourself and you do get it in a year, I want you to be able to prioritize some of the things that really mattered to you most and what you really wanted to, you know, get accomplished or remember and appreciate. So I hope that this has been helpful, and I would love to hear in the comments if you're gonna do the letter. I'm gonna do it. I hope you do it, and I will check back in to see how it's going.