I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal earlier this year by Jason Zweig. In it, he discussed a strategy to help investors remain grounded in uncertain times. The strategy was based on the work of Hal Hershfield, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Hal advocates that envisioning how you will feel about your actions tomorrow can help prevent you from overreacting today.

A simple way to achieve this mental time travel – write a letter to—and from—your future self. In the letter to your future self, detail what you’re planning to do, why you think it makes sense and what results you foresee. The research suggests this technique can help you avoid making decisions you might later regret—and can reduce the anxiety felt by the daily news cycle and market gyrations.

This may seem like a silly exercise, but when market downdrafts happen (like the one from a few weeks ago), it can be helpful to have the person that knows you best (you) speaking to you from a place of reason and calmness, reorienting you towards your north star.

I’ve completed this exercise for myself and while I won’t share the entire letter here, I will share some key excerpts that may be of use to you as well:

• Breathe in and zoom out – look how far you’ve come
• This too shall pass
• You’ve survived 100% of your worst days in the stock market (and like). Why would you think today will be any different?
• You have sufficient liquidity on hand to support your cost of living. Your portfolio has time to fall and rebuild. There is no need for you to interrupt its process
• You have invested your hard-earned capital in the best manner for you for over three decades. Trust in yourself and in the process
• Nothing has fundamentally changed with the businesses you owned yesterday other than the price they are selling for. Perhaps this is a sale to take advantage of
• And most importantly – you are safe, you are healthy, you have always been and will always be more than the sum of your investments. Go for a walk, put your feet in the grass..and breathe.

It doesn’t have to be today, but at some point, I encourage you to write a letter to your future self as well. You’ll be surprised how comforting it is when market volatility comes back. And while we don’t know when that will be, we can be virtually certain it will happen again – some day.

Happy writing!

Onward we go,

PS. As part of his article, Jason also asked readers to share advice they’d give their younger selves. Here are a few of replies:

Never, EVER, use margin.
—Kenneth Perlman, Chicago

I think the main learning I would pass onto my younger self would be the VALUE of investing….I think of John Templeton and his wife saving 50% of everything they earned. It’s initially, at least, that commitment that makes the difference.
—Pat Buckley, Cork, Ireland

Never, ever, ever listen to your friends/relatives/neighbors who brag about their sure-fire ways to invest, as they are never, ever, ever right.
—Jim Brett, Chicago

I would tell my younger self to get into bitcoin at $0.50 when I first heard of it. Buy it and delete the app. Open it 10 years later and cry about why I did not invest more.
—Brandon Wong

Begin dollar cost average investing the day you get your first job out of college. No matter how little you invest at that point, start and do not stop.
—Mike Ragsdale, Champaign, Ill.