Clear focus is essential in personal success. Without clear focus you will not know what direction you need to go. Your forces will be scattered and you will not be able to put enough of yourself into the objectives that you wish to accomplish. Finding focus is sort of like being a laser, instead of shooting all of your energy in a scattered direction, you focus this energy instead into one singular task.

In order to find focus you need to know your values. Values are the importance or the preciousness that you feel for something. Discovering your values is perhaps one of the most essential things you can do for yourself, without this knowledge you are essentially flying blind. While personal desire will give you some clues as to what your values are, it is far better for you to be able to discover these values precisely on your own. If you would like to have a better clue as to what your values are, I suggest you read the article How to Find Your Personal Motivations.

Know your vision. What does your ideal look like. As you visualize what you want most in life, what does it look like to you? Your vision is sort of like your shambhala; that wonderful and mythic place that you must find and represents your perfect ideals. In order to truly become passionate about what you’re doing you will need to have a quest. This quest is the search for your vision, for your mythic place. Vision is like your focused direction, it is your yellow brick road.

Know your goals. Know what goals you need to accomplish in order to get to your mythic place. Discover your short term and long term goals and make sure that you know them well. Examine your values again and evaluate how these goals relate to your values and to your vision. Goals are the objectives that you need to do in order to create your vision and are therefore the physical action part of your life. By discovering your values and your vision you can create the kind of goals that you know will lead you to fulfilling yourself.

Always remembered to measure all your choices against your vision. Discard anything that is wasted energy and that moves you away from where you want to go. Once you discover your vision make sure that you stay on course and that you always measure any course change against your final destination. Reevaluation and self examination are critical and must be done on a regular basis.

Success is all about focus and focus is all about finding your inner vision and your inner desires. Remember that you want to be like a laser that is focused exclusively on the things that you want instead of being scattered all over the place with no type of order. In order to achieve your success you must stop wasting time. Time is precious and you cannot afford to waste it on actions that will not lead you to your vision. Get focused and you will succeed.

A very interesting character in Taoist mythology is a fellow called “act on impulse”. He’s a great teacher that teaches you to ‘go for it’ and I think I particularly like him because he shows us mere mortals how we can take advantage of the situations around us. He would basically act without thought but his actions were always correct because by not thinking he was actually thinking in a deeper level.

It seems that we all have such complex lives now. I wonder what our ancestors would think about the kind of lives that we now have, with all our technology and fast paced craziness. Since we have such complex and busy lives it is sometimes very difficult to see a good opportunity when one presents itself. It is imperative then that we learn to relax and that we learn to take time for ourselves.

When you are able to relax your are far more aware of the impulses that you have. Being able to feel these impulses and being courageous enough to act on them is key to taking best advantage of any opportunity that presents itself. An impulse can be said to be a sudden urge or desire to act. The current belief is that these impulses are just random and chaotic feelings and emotions. We are all told that impulsive actions are careless and primitive, that they will only lead to wild and unproductive action.

There is another school of thought though the believes that these impulses are far more complex in design than we currently believed them to be. This school of thought believes that impulses are the end results of huge internal calculations that involve subconscious material that is far too complex for the conscious mind to process. Impulses, seen in this way, are powerful natural indicators of conclusions that have been arrived at through data crunching that is beyond the conscious mind.

If this is the case, and I believe that it is, then it is very important that you learn to act on those impulses that you feel throughout the day. The reason for this is that these impulses are indicators of opportunity, that your conscious mind has missed but that your subconscious has discovered through its vast array of information and processing power.

Sometimes these impulses go against conventional wisdom. Sometimes it is the case that logical conclusions differ from impulsive desire. What you must realize though is that these impulses are arrived at through information that is beyond linear sequencing. What this means is that while logic and conventional wisdom tend to take on a linear approach, inner wisdom can arrive at conclusions using complex equations that go beyond a simple mechanistic framework. For example it might be logical to take the most direct route to a desired goal but you have the impulse to follow a completely different route altogether. While you’re impulse might seem somewhat illogical and go against conventional wisdom, your conscious conclusions might not have taken into account an infinite amount of variables that your subconscious did consider. It could be that the subconscious took into account, weather patterns or nearly unnoticeable clues that lead it to believe that the fastest route is blocked or dangerous.

If you ask anyone that is considered a genius in his or her field, you will always discover that they place great importance on their inner voice. Whether the person is a great business success or a scientific genius, they tend to be people that follow unconventional wisdom and have great trust in their inner intuition. This intuition is fundamentally an impulse that they have learnt to listen to and to obey. If you wish to excel in any field, I also suggest that you learn to listen to your impulses.

In order to take advantage of opportunities you must be in the right place and at the right time. Sometimes even if you’re off by just a little bit, you will not be able to take advantage of just the right opportunity that can greatly increase your success. Being at the right place and there at the right time involves calculations that are far too intricate for the conscious mind. Your subconscious though can make these calculations and makes these calculations whether you are aware of it or not. In order to take advantage of these great subconscious calculations you need to listen and act on your impulses. In order to take advantage of any and all opportunities you must do as the great Taoist master and ‘act on impulse’.

A great way to begin to understand yourself and the reality around you; is to learn to let your thoughts pass by unhindered, as you pay attention to them.  This way you will discover the flow of your reality because it is the case that your thoughts create the world that you see around you.  Whether you believe in the metaphysical concept of ‘the law of attraction’ or not, thoughts do create your reality.

A thought clouds your judgment and focuses your attention.  It tells you what to see and what to avoid, it indicates your beliefs and is therefore completely responsible for the way you see the world.  With the complex ‘brain scanning’ now available, scientists have seen the power of thought. Scientist have seen how thoughts can completely alter human perception and physiology. Hypnosis and vivid imagination have been studied in this way and have shown themselves to be incredibly powerful at affecting perceive reality.

These tests prove that thoughts are important.  They prove that it is important to know your thoughts because they play an incredible role in perception and therefore future action.  This perception and action create future events and it is therefore the case that your thoughts create your future reality.  Those that would tell you otherwise do not understand human psychology and are most likely clouding their reality with beliefs and thoughts that they are not aware of.

I suggest that you try to find a way to study your thoughts.  To pay attention to the sequence of thoughts that runs constantly through your mind.  You can learn to do this if you give this important task enough attention and effort.  I can guarantee that it will be one of the most important and rewarding things that you can do with your time.

A simple way to begin to do this is to see your thoughts as an never ending ‘train’ that flows past you.  See yourself as standing in front of these train tracks while this incredibly long train goes past you.  Each box car represents a thought that you see from your perspective.  You are stationary but your thoughts flow by endlessly, changing the panorama in your mind and providing a constant source of interesting and amazing perceptions.

With this exercise or by trying another one that you like, you will realize that you are not your thoughts.  You might realize that many of your thoughts come from you, while some seem to come from somewhere else.  But the most important thing to realize here is that you are not your thoughts.  Your thoughts exist projected by you, or perceived by you, but you are stationary while your thoughts flow by endlessly.

You can also learn, with this exercise, to only focus on those thoughts that appeal most to you.  To do this all you have to do is to pay more attention to those things that interest you.  Your attention is the guide that will focus your mind, and therefore your thoughts, in a particular direction.  Doing this will allow you to freely contemplate ideas that you find of interest.  It will also allow you to learn eventually to control your mind so that you are not at the whim of the circumstances around you.

It is an incredibly powerful realization, the realization that your attention creates your reality.  That your attention focuses your mind in the direction that you want to go.  Fully realizing this fact can be life altering and can totally change the direction of your being.  Learn to pay attention to all your thoughts, learn to watch the flow of your thoughts as they pass by, and you will discover the forces that change your reality and develop your inner being.

I know that it is an often repeated line now that, ‘if you do what you love, money will follow.’ It is also possible that you have read quite a lot on the subject, but I think that it is really important that you keep reading things on this concept until it really starts to sink in.

Why is it so important to keep repeating this statement? It is important because repetition is a wonderful tool to help you condition your mind. The boys on ‘Madison Avenue’ have known this for decades and will show you a commercial as many times as they can get away with it. Unlike them I think that you should use this power of repetition for your personal gain instead of theirs. Read and keep reading all of those articles, posts, and ideas. Keep reading those things that make you feel good, or try to show you ideas and ideals that YOU think are worthwhile and positive.

Why is it important to repeat the idea that ‘if you do what you love, money will follow’? It is important for a number of reasons;

1.    It is first of all a true statement. This is perhaps the most important point to try and convince someone of because if you really believe it then you will start to incorporate this belief in your own life (to great personal benefit). It is true that you can make money doing something that you don’t like or something that you are totally indifferent about. But this is usually far more difficult, especially if you don’t like what you are currently doing.

The simple reason for this is that if you are doing what you love then you are passionate. Doing what you love gets you excited, it increases your energy and when you accomplish something, you feel satisfied and happy.
In order to do well at something, you have to be pretty good at it, and the only way to be good at something is to either have a natural talent or to work at getting good at it. It is very difficult to work at things that you don’t care about or that you hate. The mere thought of having to get up to do them is very difficult. Everything is a chore and you have to develop this incredible discipline, that sounds wonderful on paper but is really a terrible thing to have to put yourself through; especially in lives as short as ours.

Working at what you love on the other hand is easy and fun. You want to do it, it’s your hobby and it makes you feel excited just thinking about what you might want to try next. In order to make good money at something, you have to be pretty good at whatever that something is, and you have to be willing to put in the extra time and go the extra mile. When you are doing your ‘life work’ it is super easy to put in this time and effort. It’s not really effort,  you either do it or you do not feel satisfied with yourself. And even if you never get rich at doing what you love to do, you won’t care because while others work away, you are playing with your hobby.

2.    Repetition as I have already said will help you change your beliefs. There is another phrase that gets shot about a lot now a days, “you get what you focus on”. This phrase is very true and will work to change anything in your life, whether you are conscious of it or not. You do not have to believe in Metaphysics to realize that your attention is an incredibly powerful tool that can be used for good or ill.

By focusing on one thing, you exclude something else. You cannot see everything so you choose (or others choose for you) what you will pay attention to and what you will ignore. Repetition trains for attention so that you start to focus more on that which you keep repeating. Then that focus and attentions take over and naturally guides you to your goal.

3.    This is always worth repeating because it is something that will make you happy. Doing what you love will make you happy. Getting paid for doing what you love will make you even happier. Since this is a the simple truth of the matter, then repeating this belief is always a good idea; it’s good for you because you want to be happy!

4.    This belief is worth repeating also because if you believe it and start to implement it; it will begin to fulfill you. We are all here to try and fulfill our values and doing what you love will allow you to grow and expand your personal being.

In order to grow and expand, it is very important that you start bringing out all of those wonderful things inside you so that you start to create your ideal life. You grow and expand as a spiritual being by doing and creating those things that bring you joy. If it is true that, if you do what you love money will follow, then it is also true that doing what you love will expand your being and fulfill your soul. So really how can you lose?

Finally, just start out slow, and remember that what you love tends to change with time so be prepared to change and grow as you develop your potential. Start from where you are right now, trying to do more and more of what you love during your spare time. Eventually you will discover how you can make a difference with your passions. And as you grow and develop, you will change and expand these passions, and they will lead you into better and better ways to help others and yourself. Good Luck!

I know that I have given you some ideas on how to control your thoughts and emotions on other articles. In this article though I want to give you a technique that is definitely more advanced. I think that if you follow my writings and you have some experience in mental control, you will find that this technique is a natural extension of what has come before.

This technique will allow you to control negative and compulsive thoughts and emotions. While I have as I said given you other ways to do this, this method does not involve any visualization or mental trick as it were. You begin to practice a direct exercise of your WILL; that is, you WILL something to be the case and it is the case. This is very useful because other methods mentioned tend to use a visualization crutch which is time costly and is difficult to do depending on where you find yourself.

There are many times when negative and debilitating emotions assail us. These emotions can be the result of internal ruminations or the result of external influences. Whatever the case, when you are in the thick of doing something important, you need to stop these emotions quickly. Thoughts are quite often the culprits here since all emotion is cause by thought, whether we are conscious of the thought or not. But again, whether these are thoughts or emotions, there are times when self-examination is an impossibility. You could be in a difficult situation for example and what you really need at the moment is self-control.

When you find yourself in the situation mentioned, where you need to stop an emotion or thought quickly, you must exercise advanced thought control. To do this you must WILL yourself to stop thinking the thought that keeps popping into your head or you must WILL yourself to stop feeling what you are feeling. It is as simple as that really. The simplest, quickest, and most advanced method of thought control is WILL.

The doing of course is always the big trick in all of this; how do you train yourself to be able to WILL yourself to stop this emotion or thought cold. And the method is as simple in explanation as the answer; biofeedback. Using biofeedback people have trained themselves to do amazing things: slow or speed up heart rates, lower or raise blood pressure, change brainwave patterns, lower or raise insulin levels. All of these things are autonomic which means that they are not supposed to be under the control of the conscious mind, yet with biofeedback normal people are doing in months what it took Yogis decades to accomplish in the past.

But don’t get worried thinking that you will have to go buy some expensive electronic gear. All that you need to accomplish this advanced thought control is already available within you. You see, every time that you have a thought, whether you are conscious of it or not, you have an emotion or feeling. This feeling is always registered in the body, and the most common way that you register these thoughts and emotions is through tension.

So, there you have the only two biofeedback controls that you will ever need:

1. You will either feel an emotion or
2. You will feel some kind of tension or displacement in your body

With these two gauges you will be able to train yourself to WILL yourself to stop any thought or emotion. The process is really a matter of concentration, focus, and effort. The most important things here are concentration and focus. The effort will change depending on how powerful the thought or the emotion is but all can be overcome easily with intense focus. Do remember that this is Advanced thought control.

To explain how to begin to do this, let’s use an example; Let’s say that you have to walk across a really thin ledge that is many stories off the ground. Trying to do this, you are probably really sacred. What is going on here is that you have a belief that you’re a going to fall to your death. You are probably having many thoughts that are replaying all sorts of scenarios in your mind at that moment. It is quite possible that these thoughts are happening so quickly that all that you are really aware of is the deep and powerful fear that is paralyzing your entire body.

What you must do then is to WILL yourself to stop your fear. You can do it, have confidence in yourself. You will instantly know how well you are doing because your fear is your barometer. After trying to WILL yourself for a bit; do you feel any less fear? Do you feel just as fearful as before?

Well here is some help, the fear will create incredible tension in your body. If you can, try and focus on where this tension is on our body. Perhaps your thighs are incredibly stiff and you can barely move your legs, or perhaps your stomach is in a knot. Concentrate on these areas and WILL them to relax, Breathe deeply and WILL these body parts to relax. Try to work backwards at first until you get the hang of it; Will your body tensions to relax first, then Will your fears down, and finally WILL those negative thoughts away. At this advanced stage, do not try and replace the negative with a positive, just become empty in the moment. If you can stop the tension and the emotion, you will find that your thoughts will also quiet down, and if you can’t completely stop those thoughts then no worries because thought without emotional energy is powerless.

Concentration is what you will need in order to stay vigilant enough to keep an eye on the thoughts and feelings that you are having. And then to be able to separate the body parts that are tense or feel a bit off. Then you will need to focus completely on what you intend to happen. In order to be able to WILL yourself yo do something, you must be able to focus completely on your intent so that the only thing the you are conscious of is what you are intending. Without this focus you will not be able to do what you intend; your WILL will lack the power to do what you are asking.

Aside from this there is not much more that I can say. You must practice and keep practicing until you can develop the kind WILL that can do as you bid. There are a number of articles here that might help you to develop your concentration and focus, you might want to start with Learn the Power of Concentration.

Never use this method alone and stop ALL the bad emotions and thoughts in your mind forever. All negative thoughts and emotions must be examined or you will end up hurting yourself. I hope to write future articles on the importance of this self-examination and how to go about it.

What do you believe about money? Is there something about money that you are assuming to be true that might be just wild speculation on your part? It is quite possible that these speculations are stopping you from attaining many of the things that you desire. You must be ready to explore your feelings and beliefs about money or you might be doing yourself a disservice.

Many believe for example that only evil and ruthless people become rich. But if you look around you will see that there are many mean and reprehensible poor people, while there are also many rich people that are good and kind.  Separating people into good and bad because of the amount of money that they have is a very bad and limiting belief, and one that you must get over before you can start receiving from the world at large.

Perhaps you don’t think that you deserve to be rich. Many people have very low self esteem and this has a direct relation on the kind of money and the kind of wealth that they have. Is there a price that you have put on yourself? We all have a certain amount that we think that we are worth. It is essential therefore that you explore this belief and find out for yourself the price tag that you have given yourself.

Can you allow yourself to be rich? It seems odd but if you explore your answer to this question you will be a lot closer to finding out what it is that might be holding you back. Follow this question all of the way to the end and you will be surprised to find out what kinds of beliefs you hold that are holding you back from making the kind of money that you desire.

If you do become rich, can you stay wealthy in all facets of your life? This question asks whether you believe that being rich will actually take away from other aspects of your life. Some people for example believe that you need to give up your free time or the time that you spend with your family to be rich.

Can you be rich and still keep your integrity? Many, as I stated stated above, believe that you need to be a crook to get rich. But this is only a perception that you have fostered or that others have imposed upon you. Good people can be rich and you can too. Explore this belief with great care because it is one that is quite prominent in our society.

Allow yourself to answer positively to all of the questions that you have about money. This way you give yourself the permission to be rich, and to have all of the wealth that you are entitled to. Contrary to popular opinion, getting the money is not the hard part; the hard part is allowing yourself the possibility of being rich.

When you know what you want and why then it’s easy to get what you want. This is because all your energies are not scattered all over the place but are focused on getting what you want. To get this focus you have to begin by exploring your beliefs about money, wealth, and being rich. Allow yourself the ability to be rich and you have won the battle.

Many people have heard of Synchronicity but few understand what it actually means and how it relates to the law of attraction. Synchronicity is basically the principle by which we know the phenomenon of time. If different actions align within one frame of reference, they are said to synchronize.  One way to think of this is to contemplate the idea that all the gears in a clock must align perfectly in order for us to be able to measure the passage of time.

Synchronicity is much more than this if it is seen from a metaphysical level.  Jung was a great explorer of the power of synchronicity and described it as, “temporally coincident occurrences of acausal events.” He came closest to explaining the relevance of synchronous events as they relate to the human psyche and how it is that human consciousness might affect time and therefore space.

Quantum physics tells us that synchronicity is going to occur in any “First Class“ universe. This means that in any system of created things, you are naturally going to have events that are going to occur in a unique correspondence to one another. For example you might look at your watch at exactly 12 noon on the twelfth month of the twelfth day when you happen to be twelve years old. But when the coincidences are far beyond the probable as might be determined by the mathematical laws of probability, then there is an outside force working or affecting the events. When this rare type of synchronicity happens, it is called, “meaningful coincidence”.

These outside forces mentioned can be any number of different things. Jung for example thought the collective human unconscious was the paramount force affecting and creating “meaningful coincidences” or synchronous events. To a far lesser degree, metaphysicians believe that individual human consciousness can affect time and create coincidences in our personal lives.

If you believe in the power of human thought and are practicing exercises that are meant to attract wealth, fortune, or prosperity of any type to you, then you have to learn to become very aware of the meaningful coincidences that make up your life. Synchronicity in this case is the way that you bring probable events into existence.

For example let us say that you are using the power of your mind to attract a car into your life because you need one desperately for one reason or another. You perform whatever exercises you are comfortable with and you create in your mind a probable future where you own a great car that meets all of your needs. In simple terms therefore you now have two probable future timelines; one in which you don’t own a car and one in which you are much happier because you do own one. In order to jump from one timeline to the other, you need a bridge; this bridge will take the form of a synchronous event.

This synchronous event doesn’t have to be a grand thing. Most often these meaningful coincidences will be small things that are only relevant to you personally. You might be walking down the street when a sparrow flies out of nowhere (you happen to love sparrows and consider them lucky), barely misses you, and then flies off and lands on the roof of a car dealership. You decide to explore this meaningful coincidence, or omen if you prefer, and find that the owner of the dealership happens to be an old friend and as result you are able to get an incredibly affordable vehicle that has everything that you wanted and suits you perfectly.

Whether you want to call it synchronicity, meaningful coincidences, or omens; these events are very important because of the very fact that they are life altering. As a student of the power of thought, you have to become very aware of these omens in your life and you have to make sure that you pursue them all to their conclusion.

All things are in a constant state of vibration. Any object that you see around you, that seems very solid and stationary, is actually in a constant state of vibration. This fine vibration is also happening to you because like everything else you to are not the solid mass that you imagine.

From the smallest particle to the largest sun, everything is in a state of motion and in this motion things evolve and change into different forms. This constant flux of energy changes your entire molecular structure and essentially recycles all of your matter; so that over the period of a few years, all of the matter that composed your body is completely changed and replaced by new material.

This pulsating motion and change have a certain rhythm and a cyclical nature. You can learn to unify your being and create great momentum and energy by tapping into this rhythmic force. Essentially by controlling the rhythmic motion of your breath, you can attain a much greater mental and physical power. Rhythmic breathing gives you what can best be described as magnetic cohesion, and this magnetic cohesion coupled with a focused mind creates resonance. This resonance can then be used to attract or repel anything around you.

By controlling your mind and the natural rhythm of your body, you can learn to align yourself to the rhythm of anything in the universe. To understand this you have to understand the power of resonance. Resonance has a direct relation to the “law of attraction”, which has become very popular in modern culture, thanks to “The Secret”.  To illustrate this; think about the fact that you can get a tuning fork to vibrate without touching it, simply by striking the appropriate note on a piano. This happens because the tuning fork will be affected by the complementary sound vibration. This same resonance principal can allow a person with a trained voice can shatter crystal.

All natural things in the universe attain a perfect rhythm that gives them cohesion and wholeness. People are different; their minds are constantly chattering and as a result, their energy is scattered every which way. This lack of mental focus means that your body and mind lack the unity needed to accomplish powerful acts.

Your body, your energy, and your thoughts are constantly being affected by this cyclical vibration of the world round you. In order to tap into this power and in order to strengthen your will, you need to create a harmonic cyclical rhythm yourself. Think of it as unifying your spirit, your mind and your body.

To do this; sit down in a comfortable position and begin by taking your pulse and listening to the sound of your heart. Start to count your pulse beats; 1,2,3,4,5,6 and then repeat; 1,2,3,4,,5,6. Do this over and over until you completely memorize the rhythm of your heart beats at a resting state.

Once you have memorized this rhythmic cycle, you need to use this rhythm to create a complementary breathing cycle. Again sit in a very comfortable position and; breathe in to the count of six, hold your breath to the count of three, exhale to the count of six, and hold for a count of three. Continue to do this for a good ten minutes.

It is very important that you use the rhythm that you memorized earlier. Don’t just count off without rhyme or reason. If you have to, stop your meditation and feel your pulse again and re-memorize its rhythm. Keep practicing and in a very short time you will be able to perform this breathing mediation, in the correct rhythmic count, automatically. When your breathing is in perfect tempo, and you can keep this tempo going without conscious thought, you are ready for the next step.

The next step is focusing on the images in your mind. With the power of rhythmic breathing, you will be able to attract things to you with greater ease. You will be able to have a superior mental focus which you can also use to relax yourself and to heal any physical problems that you might have.

A future journal is basically a journal that you keep in order to write about the future. In it you will do all your dreaming, you will write down your aspiration for the future. This journal is for all your crazy dreams and desires, no matter how improbable they might seem. Your future journal is for thinking big; your genie lamp that allows you to put down on paper all of your desires, and all of your craziest and most intimate dreams.

I’m not sure if you have read at all about the fact that the act of making lists and setting goals has an incredible effect on your future? Studies have shown that those that make such lists and write down their goals are the only ones that actually get things done. And it seems that the goal setters and the list writers are a pretty frighteningly small number.

The act of writing is a very powerful tool. It takes those whimsical and disordered ghosts in your head and turns them into concrete ideas. And most historians and anthropologist believe that the invention of written language is in single biggest contribution to human development! Ever!

You need to write your dreams down or else they will never be anything more than fleeting phantoms in your head. I want to stay away from the idea that this is some kind of metaphysical exercise but this journal exercise works whether you believe in the law of attraction or the law of thermodynamics.

In order you get what you want; you first need to dare to dream big dreams, you need to make your dreams and desires concrete by getting them out of your head and on paper, you need to develop ideas on how to make your dreams real, you need to create timelines, you need to break the big things into smaller easier to handle tasks, and you need to take steps everyday toward your dreams, goals and desires. You begin this process by starting what I like to call the Future Journal.

When you go out and buy a journal for this task, I recommend that you get one that is inspirational to you. Perhaps you might want to get a journal that looks like an old tome, or perhaps one with a nice cover picture on it that is an inspiration to your life goals (a picture of a tropical beach somewhere has always been very inspirational to me). Also make sure that the book is easy to write in; having a good-looking journal is actually a very good thing but you also want to be able to be comfortable writing in it. If you find it a pain to write in, then you will never use it. Whatever kind of journal that you get, make sure that it’s special to you.

Every time that you write in your journal, you want to date your entry. For this reason, I prefer a journal with simple lined pages without dates, that way I can date it myself and if I don’t use it for a while, I can just start where I left off. If you plan on writing on it on multiple occasions throughout the day, then I recommend that you add time entries as well; for example, 01/01/2009-3:34pm.

The reason for this is that you want to be able to look back at your journal entries and you want to be able to see the exact date that you entered something. This is critical if you want to see where you are on specific timelines, or if you want to see how a certain future dream has matured over time. Are you the same person now that wrote that journal entry then?

When you begin to write in your journal, always write, “It is now this date and I have…” or, “it is now this date and I am…” Write as specifically as possible all of the things that you want, will have, will do, or whatever it is in the most specific way possible. Picture your future goal or desire as perfectly as possible and write down in as much detail as you can everything that you imagine. Make sure that you write and see this future goal in the present tense; that is don’t write about what you will do or what you will have but write it down by saying, “I now have…”, etc.

Once you have written your future, in the present tense, as descriptively and as precisely as possible; work backwards from the dream time to your present moment and write down what you will need to do to get your dream accomplished. Don’t get too complicated, just write what you need to do to get where you are now to where you want to be.

Do this for all your dreams, wants and desires. Just make sure that you do this in a pleasurable way, don’t work at it, just have fun exploring your future dreams.

I recommend that you do this exercise at least once every fourteen days. You can do it more often like every three days or even a number of times a day on certain occasion, but do not obsess over it. Make it fun and use “The Future Journal” to explore your own being.