In this episode, Jillian lets out her inner mean girl and drops some hard truth: most people aren’t ready for the thing they say they want. Ouch! Thankfully, she also gives us a tool to help us close the gap from where we are to where we want to be.
This tool is future journaling. Future journaling helps us move from hoping things fall into place to creating an actual strategy for growth.
1) Grab something to write on. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You aren’t writing your dissertation. You just need a place to jot down your thoughts.
2) Pick a date or goal in the future. Maybe it’s 3 months from now or 10 years. Maybe it is when you finally get your dream job, or marry, or become a parent, or are commissioned for a large creative project. It’s your future.
3) Write. Write a journal entry as though you are living that life. Make it as realistic and vivid as possible. Consider the minute details of your schedule. What new perspectives have you gained? How have your habits changed? Who are your closest relationships with?
Future journaling gives us a glimpse into what it will take to reach that goal.
“It gives us the ability to imagine what that would be and to feel the tension in the gap between where we are right now and where it is we want to go.”
Visualizing this allows us to reverse engineer the how in order to get to the place we want to be. Wishing and waiting will only leave us with missing pieces in the process. Maybe you aren’t ready for your big break, but how will you know if you don’t flesh it out?
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