14 Sep 2026 8 min read

I asked my future self to spill the tea

Hello, this is Jane again.

I often write and re-write these newsletters about 15 times because I am working on being a lot more honest in my writing. It's a new practice, so it is taking practice. The funny thing is that AI keeps trying to polish those messy parts away even when I ask it not to. I wonder why? A question for another day because I am starting to get curious about that one.

This newsletter is more about a question I have been pondering for some time now. What might happen if I stopped trying so hard to predict the future?

I think, like many of us, I’ve felt a little lost this year. Perhaps longer, really, but being in a busy role has a nice way of distracting you. Now the distraction has been removed, all the feels are rolling in.

It feels like the old ways I used to navigate the world aren’t working quite as well as they used to. I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking my way into understanding, planning my way through uncertainty and turning fear into something I could solve.

Thinking my way through my feelings. As a highly sensitive human, it felt much easier to think my way than feel all of those feelings. Until now.

I’m starting to wonder whether that 'thinking first' approach that got me here is the one I need for what comes next.

Because the future doesn’t exist yet. No one really knows. Despite what a lot of people on social media will try and convince us of. Fear is an amazing marketing tactic!

So this is what I am playing with at the moment. My job isn’t to predict it, or decide what’s right or wrong, but to decide what I want to contribute to creating. Which led me to two questions:

What is the world I want to help create?

What do I want my life to be filled with?

They felt like really hard questions, so I tried something different. I wrote a letter to my future self and asked her to spill the tea. It’s an extension of my morning journalling process, but with a slightly different spin.

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is where the practice of Morning Pages comes from. The practice is to write three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing first thing in the morning — essentially getting whatever is in your head onto the page without editing, judging or trying to make it good. You can buy it here.

I started by imagining myself at 60, living in the future I want to create. I imagined a life where there was an abundance of the things that bring me joy — things that have slowly started to surface through the work I’ve been doing over the last three months.

Because even figuring out what brings me joy has needed space. After years of playing roles where there was always an expected outcome, I’ve had to step away from the doing and the knowing long enough to notice what actually makes me feel alive. As I didn't know what brings me joy. This is the list so far.

Writing.

Creating.

Inspiring conversations.

Connecting with people.

Building communities.

Making things.

And being surrounded by people I love.

So I used that list and I let myself really picture it - what that life felt like, who was in it, what filled my days, and how I was spending my time. It helped to get AI to create a picture of me at 60.... very kind of Claude to include Chewie in the background. When I am 60, he will be 18.

Then I asked her to write back and help me see what she could see.

What did she learn?

What did she stop doing?

What did she let go of?

What did she contribute?

What does she want me to know?

It was surprisingly powerful and a little bit trippy, so I had to really go with it and keep writing for the full three pages. Mostly because my mind kept taking me back to the idea that I needed to become something completely new. That I had to anchor it in a role. CEO, boards, consulting.

But my future self had something else to say. A lot of what she saw me becoming was actually about unlearning and reconnecting to the parts of myself I had put into hibernation. And specifically, unlearning the need to know.

Letting go of the belief that certainty comes from thinking hard enough.

Letting go of the instinct to turn discomfort into a problem to solve.

Letting go of the belief that having a plan means being prepared.

And, perhaps hardest of all, letting go of control.

For me, letting go has felt incredibly hard. In many ways, it has been the theme running through my therapy journey that first started in 2020.

I was terrified that if I let go, I would fall into what felt like an endless well of despair. That everything I had worked so hard to keep contained would overwhelm me, leading to depression. Having lived through many cycles of depression, the solution felt more like control.

So I held on.

To plans and to certainty.

To the illusion of knowing what came next.

To the belief that if I thought hard enough, anticipated enough, I could keep myself safe. And I could avoid another cycle of depression.

But what I’m noticing now is that there is a universe that opens up on the other side if I am willing to let go and trust.

Not a void or a deep well but something so much bigger. A kind of openness and a sense of possibility. Space for things I couldn’t have planned for. And space to notice what is already trying to emerge.

And more and more, I’m seeing glimpses of it.

We spend so much time talking about the capabilities we need for the future or what we need to change. But what if some of the things that got us here are precisely the things we need to loosen our grip on?

Her message, at its core, was simple. Be present.

Be present for myself and for the people I care about. Notice what I’m feeling in any given moment and turn that into art. Notice what energises me. Trust my curiosity as a way of listening to myself.

Trust that I will be okay and pay attention.

That last one became particularly interesting. Because when I finished writing the letter, I did something else. I asked my future self to give me signs as a way to help me stay on the path. Because, honestly, I do like the idea that there is some magical 60-year-old version of me floating around the universe, sending back coded messages.

And all I need to do is watch out for them. And then some rather magical things started happening.

The first was a book.

I was listening to a book I’d owned for years called Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach. I’d never got around to reading it. It had sat on my audible 'bookshelf' waiting for the right time. One day I felt drawn to it, and the very first line she spoke was the line from a poem that I have tattooed on my arm - the last line of this RUMI poem.

The tattoo was partly an ode to my dad and the way he passed with such grace, presence and love. And partly a promise to my future self that I will do my best to follow Dad’s example. A promise that I’ll meet you there.

As soon as I heard that poem, I stopped walking. It got my attention. And the message felt simple: Keep listening to this book. It’s important.

Then I was listening to Dick Schwartz, the founder of Internal Family Systems, talking about the inner world and the different parts of ourselves and the ‘Self’ that sits at the centre. And sitting in the background of the interview was a print by my favourite new artist. The same artist who has been quietly nudging me back towards my own artistic practice.

You can listen to the interview on IFS and systems change here.

Again, I noticed. This too felt simple: Keep allowing your feelings through your art. It’s worthwhile.

It wasn’t one big lightning bolt.

It was a series of little things.

A book.

A sentence.

An artist.

A conversation.

None of these things, individually, prove anything. Maybe they are coincidences. Maybe my brain is simply very good at pattern recognition. As a strategist, I know exactly how easily we can create meaning from patterns. But I also know that what we pay attention to changes what we notice.

And perhaps that’s the point.

I’ve spent much of my career looking for signals in businesses.

What is changing?

What is emerging?

What isn’t working?

What are customers telling us?

Where is the energy?

Where is it getting blocked?

What is the system trying to tell us?

I’m learning now to turn that attention inward. To understand my own internal system. What — and who — gives me energy. What sparks my curiosity. What triggers my fear and what that fear might need from me. And what brings me immense joy.

I’m spending the first half of my days doing things that bring me joy and the second part of my day studying things that genuinely fascinate me. I’ve committed to journalling most days and I’m giving my mornings more space away from screens. I’m getting back into painting and learning new techniques. I’m working on becoming a better writer in my own voice. Practising sharing my personal, human and messy observations and not letting fear get in the way.

I’ve taken social media off my phone more times than I can count. I keep finding excuses to put it back on. Because I’m learning that I need a circuit breaker from the constant noise of everyone else telling me what the future means.

And I’m paying attention to the things that keep finding me.

The book I somehow pick up.

The conversation that stays with me.

The ideas I keep returning to.

The person I unexpectedly meet.

The work that gives me energy.

The things that make me feel more alive.

Maybe these are signs from that 60-year-old me. Or from my dad. Maybe they’re just signals my own mind is finally quiet enough to hear. Either way, I’m listening.

Writing that letter made something very clear to me. My future self wasn’t really telling me what to do next. She was showing me how to be while I allow it to unfold.

Be present with my own inner world.

Explore.

Create.

Notice what gives me energy and trust it.

Follow my curiosity and see where it takes me.

Pay attention to what keeps calling me.

And trust that I don’t need to know the whole path before I take the next step.

I still don’t know exactly what happens next. And perhaps that’s the point. I don’t want to spend the next chapter of my life getting better at predicting the future. I want to get better at being present so that I can participate in creating it.

So perhaps this is an invitation to try the experiment yourself.

What is the world you want to help create?

What do you want to fill your life with?

Then imagine yourself 10 years older than you are now, living inside that future. Ask your future self what she knows that you don’t yet. Ask her what she wants you to notice. And then, perhaps, ask her for some signs. Pay attention to what comes back. See what you notice. And see where it takes you.

Thanks for reading.

And if you want to share your thoughts with me, I’d love to hear them. Send me a voice note here or reply to this email.

Let’s figure this out together.