December 31, 2024 • 18 mins
This episode focuses on the transformative power of journaling as a tool for effective goal setting. By envisioning future successes and immersing oneself in the emotions related to achievements, listeners can engage their subconscious and create a roadmap to their aspirations.
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Episode Transcript
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Sam (00:01):
Hello and welcome to the Super Awesome Runner podcast.
If you've been listening for awhile, you know that I love
running and everything that it'sdone for me, both on and off
the race course.
Well, I decided to take my ownadvice about leaning into what
works and pivot this podcast tobe more dedicated to running and
the lessons I've learned fromit.
(00:22):
In general, I think fitness isa powerful tool for helping us
discover who we are, what we'recapable of and just how amazing
we can be.
The thing that I've alwaysloved about fitness and running
is that that same brain that youuse to push yourself in a race
or even on a training day is theexact same brain that you can
use to push yourself at work, ona side project, in a
(00:43):
relationship, any other context.
We really are capable ofamazing things as human beings
and we generally just have tolearn to believe that first.
So I hope you enjoy thetransition over to a more
running related podcast.
If you've been, as I said, ifyou've been listening for a
while, you know that Ifrequently talk about running
(01:04):
anyway, so I can't imagine thisis going to be too large of a
pivot for you.
But I'm excited for 2025 and tolean more into what I really
genuinely love and have somerunners on the show and just
spend a little bit more timetalking about all the things
that I think running does for usas humans, for us in our brain,
(01:24):
the neurobiology behind whatkeeps us going, what pushes us
past those difficult parts ofany race, and how we can apply
that to our lives outside ofracing.
If you are joining me onDecember 31st, I hope you have a
really safe and lovely New Yearcelebration tonight, even if
that includes just staying in,because that's pretty much going
(01:46):
to be my plan If I'm catchingyou on the other side of the new
year.
I hope that it was a verypleasant and safe one and that
you are excited for 2025 as I am.
This episode appropriatelyenough, I would say is going to
be all about goals and goalsetting and all the things you
know resolutions, all the thingsthat we talk about whenever we
(02:07):
flip into a new year.
I think goals are a loaded term.
You know, setting goals can bea loaded term.
Everything on this planet talksabout goals, right, I feel like
.
Companies have goals,organizations have goals,
governments have goals.
Governments have goals, peoplehave goals.
Everyone talks about goals and,as a result, it's kind of lost
(02:29):
its meaning.
And there's so much writtenabout it, so much talked about
it.
It can be very easy to just sitdown, write a set of goals and
completely forget about them 20minutes into the year.
Right, I can't tell you thenumber of times I've sat down
written out goals and then neverrevisited them.
I struggle with them, notbecause I'm setting unrealistic
(02:52):
ones or setting goals that Idon't care about, but, quite
frankly, I'm busy, and we're allbusy and life has a bunch of
different turns and twists in it.
And sitting down on, you know,monday December 30th or Tuesday
December 31st to write out goalsfor an entire year, many of
those might not be appropriateand you know you might be a
(03:15):
little bit too ambitious withthem and they might honestly
just kind of make you feel likeyou don't want to do any of them
at all after you see themwritten all out, because it's
really simple to write out whatyou want to accomplish.
The real work comes in theactual execution part, whenever
you're faced with all of thosetiny choices that are going to
lead you either closer orfurther away from your goals.
(03:36):
That's where the actual work is, but sitting down to write them
is, in my opinion, triviallyeasy, and sharing them on social
media also easy.
Like, if that helps you withaccountability, that's great.
But I think what happens, forme at least, is I'll set a goal,
I'll share it, I'll get kudosfor setting that goal, and that
(03:58):
enough is like triggers yourreward center in your brain to
make you feel like, oh, I'vedone it, this is great.
Like, look at all this, likeexternal validation I'm getting,
and it might actuallydemotivate you to put in the
work, because you've alreadykind of gotten the gotten the
kudos and gotten the likes andgotten the shares about, about
your ambitious goals.
And people are patting you onthe back for having such
ambitious goals and it can bevery easy to then just walk.
(04:21):
So I want to talk instead abouthow I've had a much more
successful relationship withgoals over this last year, and
this is something that has takenme a long time to figure out,
but it works really well for meand I hope that you will find
(04:42):
success in it as well.
It comes down to one word Iwon't drag this on and it's
journaling and it's journaling.
Journaling has been a verypowerful tool for me for goal
setting and, specifically, theprompt that I use whenever I
want to think about where I wantto be or what goals I want to
(05:04):
accomplish is to sit down and,like, go to a blank page and I
write the date about a monthaway from where I am today.
So instead of writing you know,monday, december 30th 2024, I
might write January 31st 2025.
So I'll just shoot forward amonth.
You might think about writingit a whole year away.
That can be a much more youknow ambitious journal entry to
(05:26):
write.
Totally fair, you could evenwrite this five years from now,
10 years from now.
The point is that you want toset yourself, set your context
sometime in the future and writethat date out at the top of the
page so that you can see thatyou are writing a journal entry
in the future.
But then, as you write, you'regoing to write in present tense.
(05:47):
So then I want you to imaginethat it's January 31st 2025 and
really let yourself kind of betricked into thinking that that
is the date today and writeabout you know where you are
with your journey.
Let's say that you have a goalof running a 50 minute 10k.
I want you to think abouthaving done that, whenever
(06:12):
you're writing your January 31stgoal or maybe that's a June
goal, or maybe that's an end ofthe year goal and think about
how it feels to haveaccomplished it.
Think about how good it's goingto feel whenever you hit that
goal and write about it.
Right, you know, pretend thatyou had just finished the race
and you got the time that youwanted.
(06:33):
Write, you know, pretend thatyou had just finished the race
and you got the time that youwanted and specifically talk
about.
You know the emotions that comeup, the pride, the joy.
You know the effort, howdifficult it was to push
yourself that last kilometer,that last mile, and just that
feeling of you know, overwhelm.
Whenever you cross the finishline, you look down on your
watch or you saw the officialtime mark you at like 4950, like
(06:54):
you just made the cutoff.
And then I want you to writeabout all the training that you
did to reach that goal, so youcan kind of work your way
backwards and say, wow, you know, I'm really proud of myself.
I did all my hill workouts, Idid all my speed workouts, I did
tempo runs, I joined a runningclub to keep me accountable.
I ate really well.
(07:14):
I've been sleeping really well.
I've been getting eight hoursof sleep on average every single
night.
I threw out, you know, sugaryprocessed foods, because that
tended to make me feel worsewhenever I went out for a run in
the morning and just go nutswith all the details of the
things that you did.
You know, again, in this mindset, you're writing from the future
and you're looking back intothe past.
(07:36):
All of this, however, has nottechnically taken place.
There's a lot of things thatare happening under the hood
here.
Number one you are basicallygiving your subconscious a
problem to solve, and oursubconscious is literally the
part of our brain that we don'thave access to in a conscious
effort.
So there's not thought that isnecessarily attributed to this
(07:57):
part, because thought only comesfrom the newer part of our
brain.
Our internal chatter is a very,very advanced evolutionary
advantage that we developed muchmore recently compared to the
much deeper part of our brainthat doesn't have words
associated or or doesn't havethought.
But that's what, you know,helps you walk without thinking
about walking.
(08:17):
That's what helps you drivewithout thinking about driving.
That's what helps you runwithout thinking about running.
You know that is the systemthat, if you want to, you know,
put one foot in front of theother.
Like it just happens, it's thismagical, enormous engine in
your skull that manages a lot ofsystems without you having to
actively think about them.
(08:37):
So that's your subconscious.
And if you've ever had adifficult problem to solve,
let's say, like you're in mathor your job or some kind of a
complex project, and you'rethinking about the problem.
You're thinking about a problemand you're quite literally
thinking about it, right?
So your internal chatter isgoing and you're trying to solve
it and you decide at some pointI just need to walk away, I
need to take a coffee break,need to go for a walk, or I'm
(08:59):
going to go.
You know it's late, I need toshower, get ready for bed, and
then you have an aha moment or ashower moment that's like a
term that I've heard before thatI really love and that shower
moment comes to you just out ofnowhere, right, you weren't even
thinking about the problem, butthen, all of a sudden, the
solution presents itself and itbubbles up to your conscious
mind and your thoughts take over, and now it's setting words to
(09:21):
it and you think, oh, that's howI'm going to solve it, or
that's an interesting approach,if that's ever happened to you.
That is that marvel of yoursubconscious having installed a
problem for it to work on andthen, whenever it's ready, it
like bubbles it up into yourconscious thought and turns it
into words and something thatyou can understand.
So whenever you are journalingin the future and you are
(09:44):
writing about all of thesethings that you know, this goal
that you've accomplished and howgood you feel, and you're
really tapping into as much asyou can that imagination center
in your brain and you're lettingyourself feel the things,
because emotion is a verypowerful tool for us as humans
you're basically creating thatproblem for your subconscious to
solve and you're installingthis problem into the backdrop
(10:08):
of your mind of I have a goal ofrunning a sub 50 minute 10K and
I don't know how to do itnecessarily yet.
I have a loose idea of how I'mgonna do it, but I don't know
exactly how I'm gonna do it.
And then you just let it likesit there and simmer.
If you come back to thisjournal entry throughout the
next month, throughout the nextyear, throughout the next six
(10:29):
months, whatever that timeperiod is, and you reread it and
you think about a little bitmore.
You're going to be trainingyourself to make those kind of
unconscious decisions that willget you closer to hitting that
goal.
It sounds wild, but it reallydoes end up kind of.
You're basically creating aroadmap to this future state,
(10:50):
and you're not doing it throughconscious thought.
You're doing it throughsubconscious thought because
you've you've planted this ideain your brain that you have
already done it and you havethis like loose roadmap of how
you did it again, through thetempo runs to the eating better,
sleeping better, taking bettercare of your body.
Maybe you talked about how youjoined a gym to do strength
training or start doing pushupsevery day and core exercises
(11:12):
every day.
Whatever the case may be, asyou go forward in this year,
that is like kind of beinginstalled in the backdrop of
your activities.
So whenever you are presentedwith a sugary treat versus an
apple, you might pick the apple,and you might not even know
that you're consciously pickingthe apple, but you just feel a
sense of like I'm going to eatthe apple, like that's going to
(11:34):
make me feel better.
So that is why I really lovethis journaling technique,
because you aren't necessarilyjust writing out a laundry list
of things you want to do.
You are focusing on somethingthat is really important to you.
You're putting it out ahead ofyou, but then you're writing in
a present tense tone and almosta past tense tone, if you're
(11:55):
talking about something way inthe future of all the things
that you know, you felt alongthe way, your journey, how you
imagine it going, and you'rejust creating that little
roadmap and that problem set foryour subconscious mind to take
over.
And truly, I've had so muchsuccess doing this that I just
marvel at it.
And sometimes I will go backand you know, let's say that
(12:18):
that date crosses and let's sayI hit my goal, either on it or
before that date, and I'll readthrough it and I will be blown
away at the number of thingsthat I effectively got right.
I was writing from a position ofa future state which was really
kind of a past state which thenends up becoming my current
future state.
If was really kind of a paststate which then ends up
becoming my current future state, if that makes sense.
I think this is such a powerfulway to connect with a version
(12:43):
of you that you want to be, andit gets back to the podcast
episode about identity.
It touches on that a little bitbecause you are creating this
version of yourself, thisidentity, construct of yourself,
sometime in the future.
It is powerful because you'reprogramming your subconscious
and you're teaching it all thethings that you would like to be
(13:04):
and how you would like to getthere.
It offers your brain, you know,a kind of a path to reach that
point and it anchors it, likesomething becomes a little bit
more real because there's thisversion of you that exists in
the future that you've alreadywritten about and written from a
perspective of, and now youwill make those choices that
(13:25):
kind of lead you to it.
I mentioned that you can go backand reread it as often as you
like and absolutely do that.
But what I have found is evenmore powerful is to often
rewrite it multiple times andmaybe have a different take on
it.
But ultimately it's just you'recoming back to that same goal
that you have about running asub 50 10k and you're adding a
(13:48):
little bit more detail, you'readding more color, maybe you're
changing the date of when ithappens, but writing it
specifically is part of themagic, because you are forcing
your brain into a bit of aconversation with the page.
Thoughts are nebulous, they'rejust impulses in your brain and
they can go a mile a minute,super fast.
(14:09):
You can get lost in thought.
It's difficult to remember allthe different pieces moving
around in your head, butwhenever you write them down it
really does force anorganization to occur.
It forces you to communicatebasically with yourself through
written word and throughsentence structure and through
all of the power of language.
So writing it just helps you tocement that idea.
(14:31):
It becomes literally moreconcrete.
You are putting it fromelectrical impulses in your
brain into actual physical inkand paper out in the world.
That is the magic of writing itover and over.
And it does become a little bitmore real the more that you do
it and the more that you trainyourself on doing that.
So that's why I thinkjournaling and goal setting is
such a powerful combination.
(14:58):
So, in summary, think of a goalthat matters to you, open up to
a new page, write the date inthe future of when you've
accomplished that goal, and thenallow yourself to be really
imaginative and creative andwrite from the future in a
present tense tone about how youfeel having accomplished the
goal.
What did you do to accomplishit?
How proud of yourself are you.
(15:20):
You know you can even take amoment and close your eyes and
let yourself really sink intothe feelings and the emotions of
this moment Because, as I saidearlier in the show, emotions
are a very powerful vehicle forour bodies.
We spend a lot of time in astate of emotion, right, we feel
happy, we feel sad, we feelanger, we feel excited, we feel
(15:40):
anxious, we feel nervous, wefeel something.
Most of the time.
It's very rare that we are in aneutral state.
So attaching feelings to yourwords and to your thoughts on
the paper is going to help youreally sink deep into your
subconscious and into your brain.
On the paper is going to helpyou really sink deep into your
subconscious and into your brainand your body systems.
So spend some time journalingabout it, add as much detail as
(16:04):
you can you don't have to knowall the answers of how you're
going to do it, but I bet youhave a loose idea of how you're
going to do it and then, as youneed a reminder for this goal,
rewrite the page.
It could even be a word forword copy.
It could be a little bitdifferent, but it is going to
help you cement this roadmap foryourself and come back to this
(16:24):
goal and make you reaffirm thatthis is, in fact, important and
you are getting closer to it.
Let me know what you think.
If you've attempted this, youcan reach out to me at super
awesome runner, on threads or onInstagram.
I'd really love to know whatyour goals are.
How this journaling exercisewent for you.
Did you find it to be a bit odd?
(16:45):
Do you love it?
It's very similar to setting avision board.
Basically, vision boards havethat power because you are
setting, you're turning thoughtsinto a physical object out in
front of you, and that reallydoes just feel more real, versus
having something be strictlyonly in your mind, where we can
dismiss it much more easilysilly and fake.
(17:14):
And I kept wanting to likeasterisk everything because I
knew I wasn't writing.
You know, I knew I was writingbasically fiction for myself,
but now that I've done it for atleast a couple of years, I
really love it and I use it allthe time, and I used it in this
last year whenever I wastraining for the marathon.
I would write about myexperience having finished the
marathon and how good I felt andall the training that I did and
how proud of myself I am, tothe point that whenever I was in
(17:37):
the race actively, I had such astrong feeling of like I have
already finished this race.
Now I just need to catch up tothe timeline where I've done it
it.
You know, it was like ainterstellar moment of this has
already happened and now I'mjust connecting across space.
Time for me to feel itfirsthand, versus just this,
(17:58):
like this sense, this intuitionthat I have and as, as you know,
as you, if you've beenlistening to the show, I did, in
fact, finish the marathon.
It wasn't exactly what Iplanned, but I still found a way
to cross that finish line andultimately, that was the goal
that mattered most to me.
So journaling became a reallyimportant part of my training
for that, and hopefully it isuseful for you too.
(18:19):
All that said, I hope you havea wonderful and safe New Year's
and I hope 2025 is everythingthat you want it to be, and
let's get after it.
I will see you next week, asalways, take care.
Hello and welcome to the Super Awesome Runner podcast.
If you've been listening for awhile, you know that I love
running and everything that it'sdone for me, both on and off
the race course.
Well, I decided to take my ownadvice about leaning into what
works and pivot this podcast tobe more dedicated to running and
the lessons I've learned fromit.
(00:22):
In general, I think fitness isa powerful tool for helping us
discover who we are, what we'recapable of and just how amazing
we can be.
The thing that I've alwaysloved about fitness and running
is that that same brain that youuse to push yourself in a race
or even on a training day is theexact same brain that you can
use to push yourself at work, ona side project, in a
(00:43):
relationship, any other context.
We really are capable ofamazing things as human beings
and we generally just have tolearn to believe that first.
So I hope you enjoy thetransition over to a more
running related podcast.
If you've been, as I said, ifyou've been listening for a
while, you know that Ifrequently talk about running
(01:04):
anyway, so I can't imagine thisis going to be too large of a
pivot for you.
But I'm excited for 2025 and tolean more into what I really
genuinely love and have somerunners on the show and just
spend a little bit more timetalking about all the things
that I think running does for usas humans, for us in our brain,
(01:24):
the neurobiology behind whatkeeps us going, what pushes us
past those difficult parts ofany race, and how we can apply
that to our lives outside ofracing.
If you are joining me onDecember 31st, I hope you have a
really safe and lovely New Yearcelebration tonight, even if
that includes just staying in,because that's pretty much going
(01:46):
to be my plan If I'm catchingyou on the other side of the new
year.
I hope that it was a verypleasant and safe one and that
you are excited for 2025 as I am.
This episode appropriatelyenough, I would say is going to
be all about goals and goalsetting and all the things you
know resolutions, all the thingsthat we talk about whenever we
(02:07):
flip into a new year.
I think goals are a loaded term.
You know, setting goals can bea loaded term.
Everything on this planet talksabout goals, right, I feel like
.
Companies have goals,organizations have goals,
governments have goals.
Governments have goals, peoplehave goals.
Everyone talks about goals and,as a result, it's kind of lost
(02:29):
its meaning.
And there's so much writtenabout it, so much talked about
it.
It can be very easy to just sitdown, write a set of goals and
completely forget about them 20minutes into the year.
Right, I can't tell you thenumber of times I've sat down
written out goals and then neverrevisited them.
I struggle with them, notbecause I'm setting unrealistic
(02:52):
ones or setting goals that Idon't care about, but, quite
frankly, I'm busy, and we're allbusy and life has a bunch of
different turns and twists in it.
And sitting down on, you know,monday December 30th or Tuesday
December 31st to write out goalsfor an entire year, many of
those might not be appropriateand you know you might be a
(03:15):
little bit too ambitious withthem and they might honestly
just kind of make you feel likeyou don't want to do any of them
at all after you see themwritten all out, because it's
really simple to write out whatyou want to accomplish.
The real work comes in theactual execution part, whenever
you're faced with all of thosetiny choices that are going to
lead you either closer orfurther away from your goals.
(03:36):
That's where the actual work is, but sitting down to write them
is, in my opinion, triviallyeasy, and sharing them on social
media also easy.
Like, if that helps you withaccountability, that's great.
But I think what happens, forme at least, is I'll set a goal,
I'll share it, I'll get kudosfor setting that goal, and that
(03:58):
enough is like triggers yourreward center in your brain to
make you feel like, oh, I'vedone it, this is great.
Like, look at all this, likeexternal validation I'm getting,
and it might actuallydemotivate you to put in the
work, because you've alreadykind of gotten the gotten the
kudos and gotten the likes andgotten the shares about, about
your ambitious goals.
And people are patting you onthe back for having such
ambitious goals and it can bevery easy to then just walk.
(04:21):
So I want to talk instead abouthow I've had a much more
successful relationship withgoals over this last year, and
this is something that has takenme a long time to figure out,
but it works really well for meand I hope that you will find
(04:42):
success in it as well.
It comes down to one word Iwon't drag this on and it's
journaling and it's journaling.
Journaling has been a verypowerful tool for me for goal
setting and, specifically, theprompt that I use whenever I
want to think about where I wantto be or what goals I want to
(05:04):
accomplish is to sit down and,like, go to a blank page and I
write the date about a monthaway from where I am today.
So instead of writing you know,monday, december 30th 2024, I
might write January 31st 2025.
So I'll just shoot forward amonth.
You might think about writingit a whole year away.
That can be a much more youknow ambitious journal entry to
(05:26):
write.
Totally fair, you could evenwrite this five years from now,
10 years from now.
The point is that you want toset yourself, set your context
sometime in the future and writethat date out at the top of the
page so that you can see thatyou are writing a journal entry
in the future.
But then, as you write, you'regoing to write in present tense.
(05:47):
So then I want you to imaginethat it's January 31st 2025 and
really let yourself kind of betricked into thinking that that
is the date today and writeabout you know where you are
with your journey.
Let's say that you have a goalof running a 50 minute 10k.
I want you to think abouthaving done that, whenever
(06:12):
you're writing your January 31stgoal or maybe that's a June
goal, or maybe that's an end ofthe year goal and think about
how it feels to haveaccomplished it.
Think about how good it's goingto feel whenever you hit that
goal and write about it.
Right, you know, pretend thatyou had just finished the race
and you got the time that youwanted.
(06:33):
Write, you know, pretend thatyou had just finished the race
and you got the time that youwanted and specifically talk
about.
You know the emotions that comeup, the pride, the joy.
You know the effort, howdifficult it was to push
yourself that last kilometer,that last mile, and just that
feeling of you know, overwhelm.
Whenever you cross the finishline, you look down on your
watch or you saw the officialtime mark you at like 4950, like
(06:54):
you just made the cutoff.
And then I want you to writeabout all the training that you
did to reach that goal, so youcan kind of work your way
backwards and say, wow, you know, I'm really proud of myself.
I did all my hill workouts, Idid all my speed workouts, I did
tempo runs, I joined a runningclub to keep me accountable.
I ate really well.
(07:14):
I've been sleeping really well.
I've been getting eight hoursof sleep on average every single
night.
I threw out, you know, sugaryprocessed foods, because that
tended to make me feel worsewhenever I went out for a run in
the morning and just go nutswith all the details of the
things that you did.
You know, again, in this mindset, you're writing from the future
and you're looking back intothe past.
(07:36):
All of this, however, has nottechnically taken place.
There's a lot of things thatare happening under the hood
here.
Number one you are basicallygiving your subconscious a
problem to solve, and oursubconscious is literally the
part of our brain that we don'thave access to in a conscious
effort.
So there's not thought that isnecessarily attributed to this
(07:57):
part, because thought only comesfrom the newer part of our
brain.
Our internal chatter is a very,very advanced evolutionary
advantage that we developed muchmore recently compared to the
much deeper part of our brainthat doesn't have words
associated or or doesn't havethought.
But that's what, you know,helps you walk without thinking
about walking.
(08:17):
That's what helps you drivewithout thinking about driving.
That's what helps you runwithout thinking about running.
You know that is the systemthat, if you want to, you know,
put one foot in front of theother.
Like it just happens, it's thismagical, enormous engine in
your skull that manages a lot ofsystems without you having to
actively think about them.
(08:37):
So that's your subconscious.
And if you've ever had adifficult problem to solve,
let's say, like you're in mathor your job or some kind of a
complex project, and you'rethinking about the problem.
You're thinking about a problemand you're quite literally
thinking about it, right?
So your internal chatter isgoing and you're trying to solve
it and you decide at some pointI just need to walk away, I
need to take a coffee break,need to go for a walk, or I'm
(08:59):
going to go.
You know it's late, I need toshower, get ready for bed, and
then you have an aha moment or ashower moment that's like a
term that I've heard before thatI really love and that shower
moment comes to you just out ofnowhere, right, you weren't even
thinking about the problem, butthen, all of a sudden, the
solution presents itself and itbubbles up to your conscious
mind and your thoughts take over, and now it's setting words to
(09:21):
it and you think, oh, that's howI'm going to solve it, or
that's an interesting approach,if that's ever happened to you.
That is that marvel of yoursubconscious having installed a
problem for it to work on andthen, whenever it's ready, it
like bubbles it up into yourconscious thought and turns it
into words and something thatyou can understand.
So whenever you are journalingin the future and you are
(09:44):
writing about all of thesethings that you know, this goal
that you've accomplished and howgood you feel, and you're
really tapping into as much asyou can that imagination center
in your brain and you're lettingyourself feel the things,
because emotion is a verypowerful tool for us as humans
you're basically creating thatproblem for your subconscious to
solve and you're installingthis problem into the backdrop
(10:08):
of your mind of I have a goal ofrunning a sub 50 minute 10K and
I don't know how to do itnecessarily yet.
I have a loose idea of how I'mgonna do it, but I don't know
exactly how I'm gonna do it.
And then you just let it likesit there and simmer.
If you come back to thisjournal entry throughout the
next month, throughout the nextyear, throughout the next six
(10:29):
months, whatever that timeperiod is, and you reread it and
you think about a little bitmore.
You're going to be trainingyourself to make those kind of
unconscious decisions that willget you closer to hitting that
goal.
It sounds wild, but it reallydoes end up kind of.
You're basically creating aroadmap to this future state,
(10:50):
and you're not doing it throughconscious thought.
You're doing it throughsubconscious thought because
you've you've planted this ideain your brain that you have
already done it and you havethis like loose roadmap of how
you did it again, through thetempo runs to the eating better,
sleeping better, taking bettercare of your body.
Maybe you talked about how youjoined a gym to do strength
training or start doing pushupsevery day and core exercises
(11:12):
every day.
Whatever the case may be, asyou go forward in this year,
that is like kind of beinginstalled in the backdrop of
your activities.
So whenever you are presentedwith a sugary treat versus an
apple, you might pick the apple,and you might not even know
that you're consciously pickingthe apple, but you just feel a
sense of like I'm going to eatthe apple, like that's going to
(11:34):
make me feel better.
So that is why I really lovethis journaling technique,
because you aren't necessarilyjust writing out a laundry list
of things you want to do.
You are focusing on somethingthat is really important to you.
You're putting it out ahead ofyou, but then you're writing in
a present tense tone and almosta past tense tone, if you're
(11:55):
talking about something way inthe future of all the things
that you know, you felt alongthe way, your journey, how you
imagine it going, and you'rejust creating that little
roadmap and that problem set foryour subconscious mind to take
over.
And truly, I've had so muchsuccess doing this that I just
marvel at it.
And sometimes I will go backand you know, let's say that
(12:18):
that date crosses and let's sayI hit my goal, either on it or
before that date, and I'll readthrough it and I will be blown
away at the number of thingsthat I effectively got right.
I was writing from a position ofa future state which was really
kind of a past state which thenends up becoming my current
future state.
If was really kind of a paststate which then ends up
becoming my current future state, if that makes sense.
I think this is such a powerfulway to connect with a version
(12:43):
of you that you want to be, andit gets back to the podcast
episode about identity.
It touches on that a little bitbecause you are creating this
version of yourself, thisidentity, construct of yourself,
sometime in the future.
It is powerful because you'reprogramming your subconscious
and you're teaching it all thethings that you would like to be
(13:04):
and how you would like to getthere.
It offers your brain, you know,a kind of a path to reach that
point and it anchors it, likesomething becomes a little bit
more real because there's thisversion of you that exists in
the future that you've alreadywritten about and written from a
perspective of, and now youwill make those choices that
(13:25):
kind of lead you to it.
I mentioned that you can go backand reread it as often as you
like and absolutely do that.
But what I have found is evenmore powerful is to often
rewrite it multiple times andmaybe have a different take on
it.
But ultimately it's just you'recoming back to that same goal
that you have about running asub 50 10k and you're adding a
(13:48):
little bit more detail, you'readding more color, maybe you're
changing the date of when ithappens, but writing it
specifically is part of themagic, because you are forcing
your brain into a bit of aconversation with the page.
Thoughts are nebulous, they'rejust impulses in your brain and
they can go a mile a minute,super fast.
(14:09):
You can get lost in thought.
It's difficult to remember allthe different pieces moving
around in your head, butwhenever you write them down it
really does force anorganization to occur.
It forces you to communicatebasically with yourself through
written word and throughsentence structure and through
all of the power of language.
So writing it just helps you tocement that idea.
(14:31):
It becomes literally moreconcrete.
You are putting it fromelectrical impulses in your
brain into actual physical inkand paper out in the world.
That is the magic of writing itover and over.
And it does become a little bitmore real the more that you do
it and the more that you trainyourself on doing that.
So that's why I thinkjournaling and goal setting is
such a powerful combination.
(14:58):
So, in summary, think of a goalthat matters to you, open up to
a new page, write the date inthe future of when you've
accomplished that goal, and thenallow yourself to be really
imaginative and creative andwrite from the future in a
present tense tone about how youfeel having accomplished the
goal.
What did you do to accomplishit?
How proud of yourself are you.
(15:20):
You know you can even take amoment and close your eyes and
let yourself really sink intothe feelings and the emotions of
this moment Because, as I saidearlier in the show, emotions
are a very powerful vehicle forour bodies.
We spend a lot of time in astate of emotion, right, we feel
happy, we feel sad, we feelanger, we feel excited, we feel
(15:40):
anxious, we feel nervous, wefeel something.
Most of the time.
It's very rare that we are in aneutral state.
So attaching feelings to yourwords and to your thoughts on
the paper is going to help youreally sink deep into your
subconscious and into your brain.
On the paper is going to helpyou really sink deep into your
subconscious and into your brainand your body systems.
So spend some time journalingabout it, add as much detail as
(16:04):
you can you don't have to knowall the answers of how you're
going to do it, but I bet youhave a loose idea of how you're
going to do it and then, as youneed a reminder for this goal,
rewrite the page.
It could even be a word forword copy.
It could be a little bitdifferent, but it is going to
help you cement this roadmap foryourself and come back to this
(16:24):
goal and make you reaffirm thatthis is, in fact, important and
you are getting closer to it.
Let me know what you think.
If you've attempted this, youcan reach out to me at super
awesome runner, on threads or onInstagram.
I'd really love to know whatyour goals are.
How this journaling exercisewent for you.
Did you find it to be a bit odd?
(16:45):
Do you love it?
It's very similar to setting avision board.
Basically, vision boards havethat power because you are
setting, you're turning thoughtsinto a physical object out in
front of you, and that reallydoes just feel more real, versus
having something be strictlyonly in your mind, where we can
dismiss it much more easilysilly and fake.
(17:14):
And I kept wanting to likeasterisk everything because I
knew I wasn't writing.
You know, I knew I was writingbasically fiction for myself,
but now that I've done it for atleast a couple of years, I
really love it and I use it allthe time, and I used it in this
last year whenever I wastraining for the marathon.
I would write about myexperience having finished the
marathon and how good I felt andall the training that I did and
how proud of myself I am, tothe point that whenever I was in
(17:37):
the race actively, I had such astrong feeling of like I have
already finished this race.
Now I just need to catch up tothe timeline where I've done it
it.
You know, it was like ainterstellar moment of this has
already happened and now I'mjust connecting across space.
Time for me to feel itfirsthand, versus just this,
(17:58):
like this sense, this intuitionthat I have and as, as you know,
as you, if you've beenlistening to the show, I did, in
fact, finish the marathon.
It wasn't exactly what Iplanned, but I still found a way
to cross that finish line andultimately, that was the goal
that mattered most to me.
So journaling became a reallyimportant part of my training
for that, and hopefully it isuseful for you too.
(18:19):
All that said, I hope you havea wonderful and safe New Year's
and I hope 2025 is everythingthat you want it to be, and
let's get after it.
I will see you next week, asalways, take care.
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