Bring your vision to life, Write it down!
I recently wrote an article about meditating called Close your Eyes to See. Meditating is a great practice, but you don’t want to lose the peace and vision you receive from meditation. Once you mediate, don’t lose all that beautiful insight and direction you received from yourself and your higher power. Capture it. Journal it.
If you don’t write down what you see in your mind, your dreamlike and creative state will be quicky forgotten. You may have received some great eureka moment, which you may not forget and will think about later, but most likely it will be gone before long and you won’t be able to take that life changing action.
This is your inner voice telling you what you need to do. Follow it. Do not ignore it. Capture it by writing it down.
You can create concrete visions while meditating that direct you to take action that you know you need to take. Meditation has the dual purpose of clearing our minds, and once that space is cleared, making room for our true higher self to enter that space. As you see more clearly, write down what you see. Write down what you are stressed about, write down the thoughts that are on repeat that quiet down, write down the visions you see for yourself, write down the person that pops into your mind.
Once you are done meditating, just take 2–12 minutes more to write down what you thought about, prayed for or saw in your minds eye. Write about your challenges, hopes, dreams and relationships. Write about the divine inspiration that you must act on. Just get it out of your mind and down on paper. The practice of journaling allows your thoughts to become reality.
You can then go back and read what you wrote and decide to take action.
You can reach out to that person you thought of that will be a mentor or open a door for you. Or say sorry to that person you keep thinking about that you hurt by what you did or said. Or go get that new job you keep thinking about. Or ask that person out that makes you smile when your eyes are closed and they pop in your head. Or write the story that you saw yourself writing while meditating.
When you write down what you saw or thought about during meditation you are more likely to make it come to life.
After you capture it and write about it, you can schedule that action. You can advance the thoughts more during your productive state of mind and turn the thought into action. As you journal, you are becoming your future self you saw with love in the mirror. You are turning thought into action.
Everything that you see other than animals and nature were first just a thought in someone’s head. Every single thing not naturally existing, your computer, your car, your light bulb were just thoughts in someone’s mind. Then they wrote it down. Now, you type on your computer, drive a car or turn on a light bulb. Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison all had great ideas. But they turned their ideas into action. How? They thought about it, wrote it down and then acted upon what they wrote down.
Like writing down our habits we want to work on, that which is measured can be improved. So, if you are recording your thoughts, dreams, hopes and fears, you can measure your progress in addressing them.
You can see that challenge as something that you can boil down into a few words. It does not have to be all consuming. You can think about it, get insight from your higher power and yourself and then write about it, address it and move on. The practice of writing down even just a few words for a few minutes a day is invaluable in becoming the person you are meant to be.
In his book Fit for Wealth about being healthy physically and financially, renowned financial advisor and owner of Pacific Capital, Chad Willardson, discusses a number of great healthy strategies, including journaling.
Not a lot of people talk about the benefits of daily journaling, but a lot of friends I know do it habitually and it has such a great benefit for them. Willardson says, “I love to physically handwrite in my journals. Research suggests strong benefits in physically connecting the brain and the hands through writing with a pen and paper. It allows you to get deeper into your subconscious both to uncover new ideas and to root new habits than if you type or dictate them into your phone.” Like Chad, I am a “very digital person, but I do keep a physical journal for this purpose.”
In journaling, I record what I thought about or had seen while meditating or direction I felt from my higher power and then add some other notes or thoughts related to what had occupied my clearer mind during meditation. Sometimes it was new direction or new thoughts and sometimes it was how to address a challenge. Sometimes it is just expressing gratitude for my loving wife and kids.
I use a journal unabashedly titled “The Best Journal Ever” published by Incredible Journals. I will also be publishing a Habitually Inspired journal. Each journal page starts with recording hours slept, an inspiring quote, 3 things I am grateful for and journal space.
While it may not have come up in your meditation, recording 3 things you are grateful for as you start journaling is a great way to get you in the abundance mindset and appreciate the good in life. Even when you are down, being grateful lifts your spirits.
PM Journal: Set your BIG 3 Priorities for the next day
In my HabiTracker where I record my daily 10 habits to live habitually inspired, journaling is listed twice. Once I started journaling a few years ago, I typically just journaled in the morning after meditation. In late 2020, I started to take a couple of minutes right before bed to do a very quick journal of my wins for the day, how I want to show up tomorrow and my BIG 3 priorities for the next day. By journaling before bed, we are allowing or brains to work on our priorities while we sleep.
The great inventor of the light bulb, motion pictures and the phonograph, Thomas Edison said,
“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.”
Reading this quote was a eureka moment for me. Why not let your brain work for you while you are asleep. It honestly takes less than 3 minutes each night before you head off to bed or even when you’re in bed to jot down wins for the day and your BIG 3 priorities for the next day.
After jotting down my BIG 3 priorities for the next day, I then text these to my accountability partner, Lori. We have kept this daily accountability up day in and day out for 4 years. It keeps us focused on our priorities and by sharing it with someone else, it gives us a level of accountability. We just quickly type whether we hit our BIG 3 priorities that day (1/3, 2/3 or 3/3) and what our BIG 3 are for the next day.
Having an accountability partner really helps make sure you hit your BIG 3 each day. It is also a great sounding board for entrepreneurs.
Unless you jot down your BIG 3 each night before bed, you will not give your brain the chance to work on it at night. Even if you do not recall any mental activity about your BIG 3 when you wake up, you are creating a great habit that allows you to start your next morning clear on what has to be done.
Your daily BIG 3 is not a long to-do list, it is just 3 things that you must get done each day. You will find that if you can just get those 3 things done, you are being very productive. It is harder to get 3 things done than you might think. We spend our days distracted by calls, emails, texts and other people’s priorities that we rarely complete our most important tasks. If you block time for your BIG 3 priorities in your calendar the night before and get them done early in your day, you will find that the rest of the day is smooth sailing.
Journaling your wins for the day and your BIG 3 for the next day puts you in a mindset that makes you grateful for your progress that day and clear on your direction for the next day. Measuring your wins from the day can be as simple as noting quality time with family or friends, working out, work or personal progress toward your goals, some nice thing someone did for you, or that you woke up and saw love in the mirror. This mindset is created again by putting pen to paper at the end of the day and setting your intention for the next day.
Just how you give yourself space to wake up properly and set your intention for the day by not looking at the phone for the 1st hour of the day, endeavor to not look at the phone for the last hour of the day. Stay off social media, texts, email and other apps on your phone, except to set an alarm, or listen to positive music or content before bed.
Clear your mind before you sleep by not using the phone for the last hour of your day and set your intention for the next day by a quick PM journal. By clearing your mind, you appreciate the good from the day and prime your subconscious to work for you.
Just taking a few minutes in the morning and evening to journal will help you Thrive in ’25.
Bring your vision to life, listen to your inner voice and then write down what you hear. So you can take action today. to bring your visions to life, to live the life you dreams, to live as your true self.
Visit benparvey.com to download our Habitually Inspired HabiTracker, get inspired and learn more ways to Thrive in 2025.
