My Favorite New Year’s Practice

by SofiaWren January 2, 2023

If you want a fun treat, try this!

Can you believe it’s 2023?

I love the shiny feeling that New Year’s Day brings.

And you can enjoy this practice to get the year off to an excellent start.

The Practice

Since 2015, I’ve done this. Loving it!

Ahead of time, I write myself a letter for January 1st of the upcoming year.

I imagine where my life will be by the upcoming January 1st day,

and tell myself all the things I will need

on that day a year from now.

Then I arrange for it to come to my inbox on time.

I used to use Boomerang for Gmail to email it to myself around January 1st. Now Gmail has a new feature to do this as well!

Every New Year’s day, I get the letter from the previous year, and then I work on writing the letter for the next year.

So on January 1st, 2023, I write myself a note for January 1st, 2024.

And if you try this, I think you’ll love it, too.

I find rereading my letter a year later is always deeply touching.

By writing it for the next New Year’s Day, you’ll forget what you wrote,

every word will feel brand new.

If you’re like me, you’ll be surprised by how relevant those words end up being.

A collection of these yearly letters is such a great time capsule!

Do the practice yearly by replying to the previous email, so you keep an easy archive of all the letters you’ve written.

You can quickly reference them and see what life was like years ago.

It’s powerful because not only is receiving the note such a magical gift —

writing it in itself is awesome,

because it gets you thinking about the year ahead as if it has already happened.

remind yourself of those lessons you will always need to relearn.
predict the thoughts and feelings you’ll have in a year, and decide what words will be the best medicine for the hard things.
imagine your triumphs and your efforts, and you’ll start giving yourself credit in advance.