In reading Quitter (that I now have at the top of my best sellers’ list), I learned of a web site called futureme.org. At futureme.org you can write yourself an email and schedule it to arrive pretty much whenever you want, in the future. (You do have to send it to yourself at least 30 days out.)

So, this gives you an opportunity to do many things:

1. Hug yourself. In fact this is the kind of message I hope you send yourself today and every day. Tell your “future self” what you did today that you thought was really awesome. Why? Because we tear ourselves down way too often and unfortunately, people do not always notice when we overcome our bad or self-defeating habits, moment-by-moment, day-by-day.
2. Give yourself a goal and then set a reasonable date to achieve said goal. This provides a measure of accountability and if you find that you didn’t meet the goal, it gives you a chance to cheer your future self up about it. In addition, it gives you an opportunity to ask yourself why you didn’t make it—was the goal really reasonable? Was I lazy? Was I fearful? Did I not take into account all of my tendencies and scheduling issues to meet this goal? If so, then send another email further out to see if you can achieve that goal with more self-exploration and most important, more time!
3. Dream a little. Tell your future self what you’d like to do with the future and then see if merely stating it to your future self helps you achieve a little piece of the dream.
4. Take a “temperature reading.” Sometimes it’s good to just see where we were in the past, emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. Are you happier in the future or sadder? Why? What needs to change to improve things? No self-loathing allowed…this is merely a measuring stick so you can “adjust your sails” to take full advantage of the “prevailing winds.”
5. Wish yourself a happy birthday or a Happy Easter or a Merry Christmas. Why rely on others to give you the wishes you want to hear? Give them to yourself.
6. Tell a story. What was in the news on the day you wrote the email? Sometimes it’s just fun to see what was so “all-fire important” on a day in the past and then realize it wasn’t quite the emergency the world thought it was.
7. Define “enough.” What if future opportunities sidetrack you from what you really want to have and accomplish? Prevent that by deciding, now, what you would like to ideally have when you consider yourself a “success.” Perhaps you’ve already attained that? Great! Remind yourself of that!

And finally, you can make your emails public! So, after you post an email to yourself, take a moment to read what others have written. In fact I invite you to do that on 3/10/13. If so, you might find an email just for you. 😉

Tomorrow’s Post: Meet “Mattson.”