A Different Approach to New Year's Letters: Documenting Who You Are Now
Why documenting who you are today matters more than listing what you hope to achieve tomorrow.
Instead of writing a list of resolutions or penning hopeful wishes to your future self, I've been thinking about a different approach to the New Year's accountability tradition.
What if, rather than focusing on what we hope to achieve (and beating ourselves up for failing), we focused on clearly articulating who we are right now?
The Power of Present Documentation
During a New Year's Day bike ride, wrestling with this concept, I realized that the most valuable gift to my future self might be a clear snapshot of who I am today.
I’ve been reading article after article about New Year’s Resolutions. Then my daughter told me about a letter she would write to her future self. But when I sat down to write it, I got stuck in what would benefit my Jan. 1, 2026 self to read.
Instead of writing, "Hey Sean, I hope you got all the shit done that you said you were going to do," what if I captured the complete picture of January 1, 2025 Sean - someone who's tired of seeing the same yearly and five-year goals roll over year after year, who's fed up enough to make serious changes?
The Science of Storytelling Change
The best stories show change, transformation, and growth, but there's no way to measure that unless your future self can compare your current self with a non-judgmental, scientifically accurate sampling of who you are right now.
Think of it like a scientific experiment—you need an accurate baseline measurement to track meaningful change. Traditional goal-setting often fails because it focuses solely on desired endpoints rather than measuring the actual delta of change. It's like trying to understand a weight loss journey without knowing the starting weight or evaluating personal growth without a clear picture of where you began.
The Elements of Your Present-Self Snapshot
Think of this as creating a detailed baseline measurement of your current self. Like a scientist gathering comprehensive data, you want to capture the full dimensions of your current state.
Start with your core identity and mindset - how you see the world and what shapes your decisions. What makes you happy, sad, mad or glad?
This means acknowledging that I'm fed up with seeing the same goals roll over year after year, someone who values getting things done over hoping things get done. It means being honest about how I define success, like my shifting view on weight management from finding the perfect diet to understanding basic principles of consistency.
Document your daily reality - the patterns and habits that make up your life.
My current snapshot includes my relationship with exercise (consistent but not at training intensity), my struggles with my morning routine, and trying to stay on top of my projects so my wife doesn’t put me on Project Probation again.
Your relationship landscape matters, too. Beyond just listing relationships, capture their current dynamics. For instance, my relationship with work is at a turning point. My goal for 2025 is to help people catalog their lives more meaningfully (not just helping them capture what they look like).
The inner world is crucial—those questions that keep you up at night, your certainties, and your sources of joy and anxiety. Right now, I'm wrestling with how to turn my book idea into a reality and create workshops that help people preserve their important moments.
Finally, capture those forward-looking elements - not just goals, but the changes you sense coming. What makes you curious about your future? What possibilities are emerging? What resistance do you feel?
Creating Your Baseline
This approach shifts the focus from achievement to growth. Instead of creating what amounts to a future performance review, you're making a tool for genuine self-reflection. Your future self can examine what got done and where those motivations came from. You'll see how you've changed your approach to life's challenges, relationships, and personal development.
Remember, this isn't about crafting a perfect document or hitting every category. It's about honestly capturing your current state of being. Include the messy thoughts, the uncertainties, the hopes you're almost embarrassed to admit - (no one will see this but you).
The more authentic your snapshot, the more valuable it will be to your future self.
Ultimately, the goal isn't to create a scorecard for next year's you to grade themselves against. It's to create a time capsule that helps you understand and appreciate your evolution, regardless of which goals were met and which ones transformed into something entirely different along the way.