Dear Future Self: The June Challenge

Dear Sweet Friend,

I have to tell you about a moment that caught me over coffee.

It was June 10. I was at the table with my morning cup, not doing anything in particular, and I pressed play on an old episode I recorded almost six months ago with Jerod, @saiditbeauty.

The day we sat down, he was talking about starting a podcast. That was the step in front of him. That was the dream he was trying to say out loud.

I pressed play half a year later and almost could not measure the distance. Because now he is not talking about a podcast. He is launching a beauty line, Said It Beauty. His own brand. His own next chapter.

Six months carried him further than he could have promised himself the day we recorded.

That is the thing about a halfway point. You do not feel yourself crossing it. You only see it when you look back.

And here we are. June is the middle of the year. So I made myself a challenge, and I am handing it to you across the table.

Record a Video to Your January Self

That is the whole thing. Open your camera, look into it, and talk to the person you will be when this year ends. Tell them where you are right now. Then save it, and do not watch it until January. You do not have to post it. You do not have to make it pretty. You are not making content. You are leaving a message for someone you have not met yet.

Here Is Why It Works

And it is not a gimmick.

Your brain does not quite believe in your future self. On brain imaging, when many of us picture who we will be down the road, the medial prefrontal cortex responds the way it does to a stranger, not the way it does to ourselves. January you is, neurologically, someone you have not been introduced to. That is why that person is so easy to abandon. We do not protect strangers. We protect people we love.

Recording the video closes that gap. Psychologists call it future self continuity, the felt sense that the person you are becoming is still you. The stronger that thread, the better the choices you make on their behalf. You rest. You are kinder to your body. You take the scary step, because you can feel them waiting on the other side of it.

There is a quieter mechanism too. When you say out loud what you are carrying, you calm the body that is carrying it. Naming a feeling, what researchers call affect labeling, lowers activity in the amygdala, the part of the brain that runs your alarm system. Truth spoken plainly is not only brave. It is regulating. Your nervous system settles when you stop pretending.

Grace does not wait for the finished version of you. It meets you at the first step.

This is where the science and the faith meet for me. You do not have to arrive healed to begin. You only have to be honest about where you are standing.

Readiness Is Built, Not Waited For

Most of us are waiting to feel ready. Ready to start. Ready to heal. Ready to speak. Ready to change.

Readiness is not a feeling that shows up first. It is something you build. You take the step scared and unsure, still carrying pieces of the old you, and the step is what makes you ready for the next one. This was never about more discipline. It is about being willing to begin.

I Recorded Mine

I am doing it because I already know I will not be the same woman in January. This summer I am traveling with my daughter before she leaves for college. I am settling into a new city. And in August I am walking 250 miles across Spain on the Camino de Santiago. There is no version of that where I come home unchanged.

So I sat down and told my January self the truth. That I am scared and excited in the same breath. That I am proud of how far I have come and tender about how much I am setting down. That I am still healing parts of me I thought would be healed by now.

I did not say it perfectly. I said it honestly. That was the point.

I am not hoping January me has it all figured out. I am old enough to know that is not how life works. I am hoping she can look back at June me and say, you kept taking the next honest step.

That is where change begins. Not with an announcement. Sometimes it begins with a podcast. A prayer. A boundary. A video you never post. A truth you finally say out loud.

A first step.

Prompts for Your Video

If you want a place to begin, turn the camera on and answer these out loud.

1. What do I hope is different by January?
2. What am I tired of carrying?
3. What step have I been avoiding because I am waiting to feel ready?
4. Where am I already changing?
5. What would make my future self proud?

Record it. Save it. Meet them in January. I will be doing it right alongside you.

Silent to Spoken in the messy middle.

Don't quit in the quiet.

Stay sweet out there.

I love you,

- Jenn

P.S. The full conversation with Jerod, "Rediscovering Yourself in Midlife: Divorce, Comparison, and Finding Your Voice," is out now on Just Jelly Unfiltered. And if you record yours and it stirs something loose, I made a place for that — Voices, on Silent to Spoken, is where people are gathering to heal and find their purpose.

The deeper we dive, the sweeter it gets. This Wednesday, over on Lavish Life Living in Wellness Wednesday: In the Office, we go deeper into why documenting your life matters, and why a mid-year check-in is more powerful than another goal.

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