Be sure to scroll to the bottom of this post for a PDF version and other notes.
If you’re new to Daily Prompts, you may want to start at the beginning of the series here.
Year______ Month_______Day______Consecutive Practice Days_____Missed Days______
Day 31
Gratitude:________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Vision:__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Affirmations:______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Emotions Follow Action
Most of us get this completely backward. We tend to behave as if we are ruled by emotions. We look to business gurus and motivational quotes to try to muster up the enthusiasm we need to get work done. We read books, watch inspirational movies, go to support groups…it seems we’ll go to great lengths to try to get some external motivation that will move us to action.
Ironically, we can end up doing a lot of work to avoid doing the work we tell ourselves we want to be doing!
This is all backward. The reality is: when you take action, you foster feelings. Sure, sometimes enthusiasm can move you to act, but we can’t rely on that to get us where we want to go. It’s too unpredictable. The good news is that you can create enthusiasm by acting as if you were already enthusiastic.
This is so simple it’s easy to gloss over and ignore. If you’ve been stuck for a while you may not believe me, or you may still be looking for some magic that will help get you unstuck and moving again. I’m telling you, this is the magic!
Today, as you identify what action can take you a little closer to your vision, you’re going to set a very short time cap to act on it. 10 minutes is a good way to begin. Whatever you’re doing in your future Vision, you’re going to practice doing it today. You’re going to spend 10 minutes living as “future you”.
We’re not interested in results yet. The idea here is to begin to develop a daily practice. Even if you suck at what you’re attempting to do, set a timer for a very short activity session, and just start. Knowing that all you have to do is TRY for ten minutes can make taking action easier, and once you practice this daily action habit…
…observe the magic that takes place:
Action:
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Daily: (The pdf version below contains three lined pages for your daily journal)
NOTE:
The above is an excerpt from the upcoming The Lyceum Course Journal. We will be releasing it here for free as a Daily Prompt blog post. If you would like a physical copy, we will link to it here once it is released.
Suggested Use:
I realize a daily journal prompt on a blog is a little weird. This is how I would suggest using it: Open your favorite note-taking software such as Evernote, copy and paste this post into it, and write your daily entries there.
OR
Download a PDF version of this post here. Feel free to print it out, or access it through a PDF editor where you can type in your daily entry.
Collaborate With Me!
This post series is a first draft of the future book. If you have suggestions, comments, or see errors, please reach out so that I can make the final product more valuable for you and the rest of the community. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
