Mental Rehearsal through Journalling –
Ideal Day Exercise
The Problem with Vision Boards
I sent my post on vision boards to members of SARK’s writing group the other day, and one member talked about making a vision board and getting few measurable results. I had a lot of fun responding to her concerns by talking about various vision boards I’d made in the past and how I worked with them.
So, let’s get real about cognitive focusing tools. They are only as good as your use of them allows. If you create a vision board in a state of joy and excitement, it certainly works better than not having a focus tool. If you never look at the vision board after you create it, it’s not that helpful, as my compatriot reported. But, what works best is regular anchoring of your vision, i.e., spending time with your vision board daily and imagining what your life would be like if your vision were true NOW. That’s how you more easily and elegantly get from where you are to where you imagine you want to be.
Ideal Day Exercise
For years I’ve been anchoring my vision using the Ideal Day Exercise and teaching this cognitive focusing tool to my clients. Here’s a primer for creating your Ideal Day Journal.
Why Does an Ideal Day Exercise Work?
There are a plethora of studies which give support for the notions I’m about to share. If you like that sort of information, it’s out there and you can find it. At this point in my process, I’d prefer to speak from my personal experience and from observing the experiences of my clients over the last 25 plus years.
Your brain assigns importance to your experiences. If an experience repeats and you have strong emotions attached to the experience, your brain’s tendency will be to look for more experiences that duplicate the perceptions, memories, and feelings you had at the time. This is a very rudimentary explanation of how your brain imprints and seeks to repeat experiences. It’s why you often feel like you are in the same situation over and over. It’s because you are until you decide to change your mind.
So, How Do You Change Your Mind?
You change your mind by imagining the change as if it’s already occurred. You involve as many of your senses as you can. You spend time making your perceptions more vivid and exciting. Since your brain doesn’t know if a scenario is imagined or real, it will start paying attention to what you imagine, when you visit the experience regularly. Experts call this “mental rehearsal.” When your mental rehearsal becomes more real than your daily circumstances, the Universe will serve your actualization up to you on a silver platter.
How to Create Your Ideal Day Exercise
Note: I personally like to dedicate a journal to my Ideal Day. I also like to stimulate creativity, so I do use colored pens and pencils and draw in the journal, when I feel like it. This isn’t necessary, but the more entertaining your Ideal Day Exercise is, the more effective it will be.
Tools:
- Paper, Journal, Notebook, Electronic Journal
- Colored Pens and/or Pencils
- Completed Vision Board
Method:
Look at your vision board and tell yourself, “This is my experience now.” Then, ask yourself questions about your vision and make notes in your journal. Here is where I start:
Wake-Up Questions:
- What time do I get up in the morning?
- Am I alone when I get up or do I have a husband or partner?
- Am I in a house, hotel, cruise ship, bungalow on the beach?
- What do I see in this room?
- If I’m stretching in bed, how do the sheets/blankets feel?
- What do I hear?
- What do I smell?
- What can I taste when I smack my lips?
Wake-Up Example:
It’s 8 a.m. in the morning, and the cat just jumped on me gently. He butted my head, too. So, I crack my eye open and see that the other three cats are visiting, too. I must have left the curtain to the sliding glass door to the deck open, because I see sunlight streaming into the room. I snuggled down into the feather pillows. I love their smoothness. I hear footsteps come up the stairs and smell strong coffee. I taste the air, and there’s a bit of orange zest floating about. My housekeeper comes in with coffee and juice and says, “Good morning.” She asks the cats if they want some breakfast, and they follow her out the room. She stops in the doorway and mentions that she made cinnamon and honey rolls for breakfast. But, I knew that because I already smelled them baking.
Next Step:
Continue to work with the wake-up portion of your Ideal Day exercise by playing with it in your imagination. Make the colors more vivid. Change the way the light comes into your vision. Make the sounds more pleasant and louder. Create more tactility around everything you imagine your touch. Make the smells sweeter, stronger. Strenthen what you are tasting. Play with your wake-up scenario until it feels perfect for you. Then, go on to the next segment of time for your day.
Next Segment Questions:
- What would I do next?
- Would I take the tray out on the deck?
- Would I take my Kindle with me, if I did go on the deck?
- If I went out on the deck, where am I?
- What level of the house is the deck on?
- What does it look like?
- Is the house in the woods?
- On the beach?
- How long would I be sitting on the deck?
- Then what?
Keep asking yourself questions, incorporating all your senses, until you describe your whole day from start to finish.
Some Important Questions to Include:
- Do I live alone?
- If not, who lives with me?
- What kind of family life do I have?
- Is this the only house I have?
- Who owns the house?
- What kind of community do I live in?
- How do I participate in community activities?
- Do I work?
- If so, doing what?
- Do I work outside the house or from home?
- What kind of financial life do I have?
- What kind of spiritual life do I have?
- How do I pursue my growth and evolution?
- Do I take classes?
- If I do go to classes are they seminars or college classes?
- Am I married or single?
- Do I have a partner?
- What’s my romantic, sexual, and social life like?
Continue asking questions, as you immerse yourself in various aspects of your vision board, until the day feels complete start to finish. Then, put the journal away for a day or two and come back to it. A couple of days later look at your vision board and then read your Ideal Day. See if you want to make any changes or improvements either in your journal or vision board. Continue with this process until one day you to say to yourself, “This is my Ideal Day. Wow, it feels so good.”
Once your Ideal Day Journal feels complete, visit your vision board, either the entire collage or a part of it, and read your Ideal Day. I recommend beginning and ending your day this way. Get so involved in this exercise that you actually taste the drinks/food, smell the flowers, feel the fabric in the chair you are sitting in, see the light come through the window, hear the birds outside your window, and so on. The more real and joyful this process is, the faster this reality will anchor.