Reality Engineering

I used to be super anti-journaling. If you go back and listen to my now archived podcast episodes I had in 2018-2019, I proclaimed in almost every episode about how much I hated journaling.

In my mind, it was a total waste of time. I was all about action.

The funny thing was, I was constantly busy, but I was spinning my wheels with no traction. I knew I just needed to work harder and do more to make the money I knew I was capable of.

Fast forward a few years and I hit rock bottom. Then I burnt out. Then I crashed and burned even harder.

And I found myself journaling. 😳

It was all I could do to not completely come unglued. Actually I was unglued, I was trying to put myself back together.

I wrote about everything. All my woes and suffering. All my thoughts and feelings.

And eventually I started writing about my hopes and dreams.

Then wouldn't you know it, they started coming true. 🤯

Once I stitched my life back together in a way that felt safe & secure, I started focusing on my career. I wrote about it every morning (still do). What I want to create, what inspires me, and anything else that creeps it's way through my mind.

Unbeknownst to me, I was doing mindset work. As an ex-crunchy-homesteading-yoga teacher, you would be shocked at how little I used to believe in mindset work, especially when it came to business. And when I say believe in it, I meant for me. I told everyone else to do it 🤦🏽‍♀️

If you had told me that I needed to do mindset work so I could make more money, I would’ve rolled my eyes at you. That was the fastest way to get me to stop listening, because I thought I just needed action. Not mindset.

Why?

Because growing up I was taught, hard work = success. You could love what you do, but you still had to work really, really hard to be successful. It was all about action.

I would get an idea, and make moves. I would even ask myself: do I believe I can do this? Yes was always my answer (sometimes to a fault). Then I would get frustrated because it often wouldn't work. Ugh.

The thing I didn't realize about journaling and mindset work is that it helps you get a clear picture of what you are working towards. It helps you see the paths that need to be taken and gives your mind more to work with instead of: I'm going to do this thing because I can & I should. It sets your nervous system in tune with the future instead of dictating your actions based on the past.

My favorite practice is one I learned from an email marketing bro named Ian Stanley. He calls it Reality Engineering and I am pretty sure he adapted it from someone else. But the idea is, you write about what you are working towards as if it has already happened. When you do, sit and imagine yourself doing these things as if it is actually happening to you in the present.

I did this in March and here are few notable things I wrote down every day:

► I make 10K each month

► I moved into the perfect new place for me and Fox (because I had to move)

► I have a new dog and she's the best

and within a few weeks I

✓ signed a lease on the perfect apartment (which has a pool)

✓ I signed 3 new clients, found the business mentor that is helping me change my business from the inside out & got 10K in tax returns

✓ we adopted the perfect dog

Then, I stopped doing it because I moved into action, and all the momentum fizzled out.

Maybe I am writing about this practice more to remind myself than to convince you of how potent it is, but let's call it a win win for both of us if we start doing some Reality Engineering this week.

Set yourself a date in the near future and start writing out what you want to happen by then, but do it in future tense. Visualize yourself accomplishing these things. Think about how good it will feel when you do. Take 5 minutes and do that every day. Then let’s see what happens

I will do the same.

And we can change our reality by changing the way we think.

Deal?