January 17, 2020 It is like making a children’s book for your dreams. My goal this time was to drink 8 glasses of 8oz of water. I drew water. Then I drew a person. Then I drew a person filled with water. I felt stupid and to be blunt, I thought it was a stupid page. Yes, I was part of the team that created the page. I did it with my goal anyways. Then I thought about other goals that I want to accomplish in my life. I drew those out also. I drew up a fantasy life that included a well organized house, kids who naturally want to pick up after themselves, avoidance of hurtful, sad experiences, and a concrete driveway. It was fun, even if it was a bunch of sticks and sloppy interpretations of a house. Then, after I drew this, I watched the TED talk that is in the journal. Yes, I understand that I should have watched it prior to this. but I didn’t. My team created that page and it wasn’t until I was doing the journal for myself. The TED talk makes sense. Draw your current reality. Draw it in black or some equally depressing color. Then draw out your future. The future that you want and dream about. The future where you own a houseboat, it doesn’t depreciate in value and you travel the world in it. The future where you are literally the abundance of positive energy and love and joy. The future where you at the top. Now, fill the picture with vibrant, energetic, emotion producing color. Then write out the steps that you need to take to get to where you are headed. After I did this, I became emotionally connected and attached to the vision. My vision is not to change the world. I know that is some people’s and I admire and respect that vision. Mine is to simply change my world. To affect those that I love and know. To reach out past myself and open myself up to vulnerable situations. It was put on my heart to make sure that people around me know that I care about them. We all have the same amount of time per day. There are sacrifices we all make, whether to our family, friends, career, or other parts of life. We must know ourselves well enough to really flush out what is important to us and follow that dream. Drawing our future connects us to that possibility. It lets us know what we imagine our lives could look like. When you add the color to the future side and leave the current reality side colorless, it puts the focus on the future self. I believe it helps organize the brain in a way that says “hey, that looks good, let’s go there” and start formulating the ways to get there. I am not an artist, to the point where my child’s kindergarten classmates can outdraw me. But this exercise really helped me emotionally connect to the future self that I want to be. It helped kick up my willpower and execution level to the ‘get it done’ intensity. I hope that drawing your future did the same for you. Until the next time, Heather