Have you ever looked back at photos of yourself as a kid or teenager and wanted to have a conversation with that younger you?
I do it all the time! I see my depressed 18-year-old self trying to dress and speak like my popular friend and cringe. I wish I could give that unconfident girl some words of advice.
Writing a letter to your younger self allows you to have that heart-to-heart and pass along some of the life lessons it took you years to learn.
I view it as a super imaginative yet meaningful exercise. By pretending to send advice back through time, you crystallize what really matters in life by sharing it from the wiser place you currently inhabit.
In this post, I’ll go through how to write a letter to your younger self to achieve growth, reflection, and better days to come!
Table of Contents
Why It’s Worthwhile to Write a Letter to Your Younger Self
Writing a letter to your younger self is fulfilling for so many reasons — there’s so much to gain from the process.
Reflect On Your Life Journey
Writing a letter to your younger self allows you to reflect deeply on the timeline of your life so far.
You can contemplate the key choices you made around relationships, careers, or moving to new places, as well as obstacles you overcame, like struggles in school, rocky friendships, or setbacks in jobs.
Hindsight provides a valuable perspective on all of it. Looking back, I realized that everything I thought was the end of the world was just making me stronger and growing me into the person I was meant to be.
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Provide Encouragement and Motivation
Armed with the wisdom you’ve cultivated, you can give your younger self much-needed encouragement, reassurance, and motivation.
Perhaps you struggled with self-confidence, dating, or peer pressure growing up. Communicate the support you wished you had — be the wise, caring voice your younger version needed.
Doing this makes you hyper-aware of the emotions and inner critic you still wrestle with today. Getting to name your insecurities explicitly and then speaking truths backed with years of experience to comfort them can be really powerful.
It helps you identify areas for personal growth while also seeing how far you’ve come.
Writing a letter to your younger self gives you the chance to articulate meaningful life lessons and hard-earned wisdom.
For example, maybe you wish you had known how important it is to take more chances personally and professionally rather than always playing it safe. Or that worrying so much about what other kids in school thought about you was such wasted emotional energy.
I remember just wanting to fit in in high school, but now I know how little those social dynamics matter in the grand scheme of things!
How to Start Writing a Letter to Your Younger Self
First, vividly picture your younger self at a specific age — maybe focus on your teens, 20s, or college years. Visualize what you looked like at that time and try to tap into how you felt emotionally. Basically, get into that headspace again.
Think about some of the key decision points or toughest challenges you faced at that age.
Were you struggling with big choices like which college major to pursue? Dealing with bullying or mean girl drama? Trying to figure out romantic relationships?
Really put yourself back in that timeframe when you felt uncertainty, fear, or confusion the most.
Then ask yourself — knowing what you know now and having the wisdom of your current age, what specific advice do you wish you could share with your younger struggling self? Are there critical truths or pieces of guidance that you know now that would’ve comforted or motivated you back then?
For example, maybe you wish you could tell your college-age self that constantly comparing yourself to others on social media will not serve you and that the path society tells you that you “should” take is not necessarily the right one for you.
Really listen and tap into what your younger self most needed to hear.
The words that you need to share will become clear as you time travel in your imagination through this unique writing exercise.
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Tips to Write a Letter to Your Younger Self
When deciding what to write in your letter, focus on identifying the 2-3 most important and helpful pieces of advice you want to share with your younger self.
Be discerning and prioritize the life lessons you believe would have guided your younger version in the most meaningful ways.
For me, one of the things I wrote in my letter to my younger self was regretting not seizing opportunities like studying abroad in college because I let fear hold me back. And I made it clear to my younger self that saying yes to those chances for growth truly outweighs any temporary discomfort.
This is why I’m keenly applying for jobs and internships overseas today — I don’t want to feel that regret again.
Remember: When writing the advice, be honest but also speak to your younger self with great compassion. The goal is to inspire positive growth, not guilt over the past.
2. Own Your Mistakes and Missed Chances
An impactful part of this exercise is taking ownership of poor choices you made in the past or chances you failed to take.
We all have regrets, and that’s very human. By reflecting on them, you gain wisdom to guide your current, older self.
For instance, examine key mistakes like relationships you stayed in too long, toxic friendships, jobs you left hastily, or addictions you battled for years. How might things have played out positively if you walked away sooner?
3. Describe How You Overcame Hardship
There’s massive value in using your letter to share how you eventually overcame an obstacle or hardship from that period in your life that was incredibly difficult to deal with.
For example, maybe you struggled with a health issue, the loss of a loved one, family turmoil, or the failure of a business idea. You can validate the pain your younger self-experienced but also reassure them that though it takes grieving and time, you eventually got through it all by rediscovering your grit and fighting spirit.
Hearing how you found resilience in the end to press forward provides comfort and encouragement.
4. Visualize the Ripple Effects
Envision how getting this letter with future life advice from your wiser self would have created a ripple effect to improve so much of the rest of your life.
For example, if your younger self avoided a bad career choice or relationship breakup, how might the trajectory of the coming years have been brighter? Maybe you would have met your spouse or lifelong friend circles sooner or pursued that passion like the arts or traveling.
Mapping out alternate positive scenarios that never happened yet will inspire you today.
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5. Set a Reminder to Re-read Your Letter
After putting so much thought into your letter to your younger self, keep it somewhere safe, like your journal or a storage box. Then, set a yearly reminder on your calendar to pull out and re-read the letter, maybe on your birthday or New Year’s Eve.
Seeing your letter again on an annual basis allows you to reflect on how much more wisdom you’ve gained since originally writing it. It also helps you consider how your perspectives may have grown or changed on the advice you offered yourself.
The reminders of how far you’ve come and how you visualized life unfolding differently can recharge your sense of hope if you ever feel stuck in the present.
Final Thoughts
Writing a letter to your younger self is such a valuable way to reflect on life’s journey so far.
I hope you feel inspired to have an imagined conversation across time to share your wisdom.
Please leave a comment below on any crucial advice you’d give your younger self or takeaways you had from trying this exercise. I’d love to hear your thoughts!