Current & Future Me is a self-reflection and visualization exercise I learned from Lavendaire. The idea is to draw your current self as you are today versus what you would like to see in your future self. By becoming aware of the differences between your current self and your future self, you can start to close the gaps.

Since it was my first time doing this exercise, I decided to add a twist. I wanted to reflect on my past self and how far I've come since leaving my full-time job in 2018. It was an eye-opening and therapeutic exercise. It provided me with clarity on what I wanted for my future self and pointed me to the gaps I needed to address to get there.

If you’re having trouble visualizing what this exercise could look like, you can click here to see the one I did in 2019.

Here are three variations on this exercise:

• Current me & future me: Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle to divide it into two halves. On one half, visualize and draw your current self. On the other half, visualize and draw your future self. Try to imagine yourself fully immersed in your present and future selves. Use words, thought bubbles, or speech bubbles to represent your patterns of thinking and behaviour.

• Past me & current me & future me: Take a sheet of paper and draw a couple of lines to divide it into three sections. In the first section, visualize and draw your past self. In the second section, visualize and draw your current self. In the third section, visualize and draw your future self. Try to imagine yourself fully immersed in your past, present, and future selves. Use words, thought bubbles, or speech bubbles to represent your patterns of thinking and behaviour.

• Letters to yourself: Write a letter to yourself at a specific point in time. Perhaps you’ll want to write a letter to your past self — some ideas include expressing gratitude to yourself for the decisions you made, forgiving yourself for past mistakes, or offering yourself advice or a new perspective. Perhaps you’ll want to write a letter to your current self as a time capsule to capture exactly how you are feeling today. Perhaps you’ll want to write a letter to your future self, making predictions or projecting forward your hopes and dreams. Send the letter to yourself via snail mail, or seal it and set it aside to open at a later date. You can use a piece of beautiful stationary, a greeting card, a post card, or a plain sheet of paper. In all instances, be gentle, kind, and compassionate to yourself.