A Powerful 90 Day Self-Improvement Exercise That Could Change Your Life

“Do you want to meet the love of your life? Look in the mirror” — Byron Katie

Recently, I wrote a letter to my future self — meaning, I wrote a letter to myself (Karan) for 90 days from today. This is one of the most powerful self-development exercises I have ever done in my life and it could have the same impact for you.

I go through this exercise every 90 days, writing a letter to me, from me. It might sound odd…but it’s insanely powerful. Here’s why:

I’ve never been a good long-term goal setter. Annual plans and long-term goal setting is something I struggle with. I lose motivation, get bored, and let’s be real…a year is a long way away. I can’t see that far into the future nor do I want to wait.

90 days on the other hand is just 3 months. And that is something you can visually see in your mind. It’s the sweet spot.

The problem with most humans is that we spend more time thinking about what we don’t want to happen versus what we actually want to happen in our lives. And to make things worse, did you know that over 83% of people don’t even have written goals anywhere? Talk about letting life control you versus you controlling your life.

The 90-Day Letter will help you laser your focus and attention down to a few key areas of your life that you want to improve.

Do not type this letter in a document on your computer and email it to yourself. That won’t work.

Neuroscience studies have shown that writing goals down on paper (using pen or pencil) makes you more likely to achieve those goals. So write this on paper, okay?

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This exercise can literally change your life:

I remember doing this exercise for the first time thinking it’s weird, why would I do this, sounds kinda dumb, etc and until I did it!

The first time I did this, my goals were to: 1) quit my 9–5 job 2) start my own business 3) travel (I didn’t know where but I liked the idea of it)

By the time 90-days had come around, I had quit my job, started my business (Jube) and was on my way to Italy with Brandi for a wedding. The universe worked its wonders and I wished I had dreamed bigger.

Did everything come true? Nope. I was shy of my financial goal and didn’t hit my fitness goals. But that’s okay! The intent of this exercise is to keep you focused on the things that truly matter to you.

More benefits of writing a 90-day letter:

• Writing a letter to your future-self creates an event. There is a date that you have committed to yourself for achieving a certain goal. This creates a ton of accountability and focus in your life.
• The goals you set are private to you. There are certain things in my life that I want to keep to myself and writing a letter like this feels like a personal diary.
• It helps you measure progress in the most real way as possible. Imagine opening a letter that you wrote 90 days ago, and opening it to find that you actually achieved your goals. It will give you goosebumps (like it did for me).

What goes in your 90-day letter:

I’m going to share with you the exact process I use that will help your write your first 90-day letter. Deal?

Before I sit down and begin to write this letter, I think of a few areas of my life that I want to improve so that I can write down specific goals in my letter.

For me, those areas are: my business, my relationships, my health, my personal development, and a passion (for me that’s acting). Pick the areas of your life that you want to improve and have a list of 3–5 of these categories in your mind.

I begin to write the letter with these categories in mind, imagining what I want my life to look like and what goals do I want to accomplish in each of those categories in the next 90 days.

Write this letter as if you have already achieved your goals (re-read this sentence).

This is really important that you write with the intention that you have already achieved these goals.

For example, here were some of my goals from my last letter:

• my business: have $100,000 cash in my business bank account (the who, the how will I do this, the self-limiting beliefs — do not worry about any of those things just write down your goals)
• my relationships: a fun, joyful relationship with Brandi (my partner) full of spending more time together and exploring our city, getting on FaceTime with my grandma at least once/week, calling my parents every week, and cutting out negative energy people from my life
• my health: working out 3–5x a week consistently, visible abs, lean body, and drinking a daily green smoothie
• my personal development: reading 2–4 books a month, learning Spanish on Duolingo
• my passion: landing 5 acting gigs (commercials/tv shows, etc) and spending an hour a day working on my craft and investing in my actin career

Again, do not think about “how will I do this?”, “I don’t have a plan” and all those other self-limiting doubts. Remember what I said above — most people think about what they don’t want versus what they actually want.

Once you have your categories in mind, you can begin writing your letter.

Step 1 — put your phone to do not disturb, get away from your laptop, go find a quiet place to sit. Please do not ignore this important step, you do not want distractions.

Step 2 — sit down with a notebook or blank printer paper and a pen or pencil. Ideally you have paper that you can fold into an envelope (more on this below).

Step 3 — begin writing with “Dear _____” (your name), and do not stop until you have written your 90-day goals for each of your above categories. Imagine opening your letter in 90 days — what goals would you have want to have accomplished by then? Write them down in this letter! What do you want your life to look like? How do you want to feel? Can you believe you actually hit your goals?! Write as if you accomplished them!

Step 4 — put your completed letter in an envelope and seal that sucker. On the front of the envelope, write down today’s date, and the open date (just Google “90 days from today”).

Your envelope will look like mine below, with your dates.

Written: Enter today’s date

Open: Google 90 days from today

Step 5 — this is the final step. Go hide the letter somewhere, or put it on your book shelf. Put a reminder on your phone or in your calendar for 90 days out and open up your letter that day. On the day of, I always make a coffee before opening my letter and sit in silence as I read it. Then, I read it a second time out loud to myself. Third, I’ll share it with Brandi and maybe on social media with my inner tribe.

This last step is powerful because hopefully you will realize the power of writing goals on paper and working towards 90-day targets in your life.

My last letter was 5 pages (see this photo)

I’ve recommended this exercise to hundreds of people that have written letter to their future-selves…and now I’m challenging you to write your letter in the next 24 hours.

What now?

Re-read this email if you need to and commit to writing your letter in the next 24 hours. When you are done, I’d love for you to take a selfie with your letter and post it in our Facebook community.

This will not only inspire other people to dream big, but it will also hold you accountable to writing your letter.

If you read this entire email, and do not take action, that’s on you. But I’m here to hold you accountable so get to work!

Post My Photo to Inspire Others!

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to enter your inbox and your life today.

I hope this exercise brings you as much wonders and joy as it has brought to me.

And I’d love for you to reply to this email with questions, comments, or your general feedback!

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Karan