Write It Down, Make It Happen

Write It Down, Make It Happen is a simple guide to help you accomplish your goals through the act of writing, showing you how to use this basic skill to focus, address fears, and stay motivated.

Spread throughout your brainstem is a wide, complex web of connected neurons called the reticular activating system, or RAS for short. It is one of the oldest parts of our brain and takes care of several basic, but essential biological functions. In essence, what it does is prime your subconscious to focus on certain triggers over others.

It is the RAS, for example, that gets parents of a newborn to wake up at the slightest noise the baby makes, yet allows them to sleep through an airplane takeoff as long as their child remains quiet. If you’ve ever started noticing something more often after a friend pointed it out to you, like a certain kind of car or piece of clothing, that’s your RAS at work!

When you handwrite your goals down on paper, you’re activating your RAS and telling it: “Focus on these things!” After you’ve done so, your brain will begin to handle incoming requests, information, and messages differently. Everything gets filtered based on how much it helps you move closer to your goals. Cool, huh?

When a Jewish person calls you a ‘kvetch,’ it means they’re annoyed by your constant whining. But what may start as incessant complaining can actually have a bigger purpose: ‘kvetching’ is also a way of talking out your negativity until you’ve got your feelings back in order.

Writing can help you accomplish the same thing. Plenty of obstacles might stop you from taking the next step, but, sometimes, they’re not obvious. In this case, you can use what Klauser calls ‘rapidwriting’ to discover and solve your problems at the same time. Once again, all you need is pen and paper.

To start a rapidwriting session, think about your problem for a few minutes, then start writing down your thoughts. Don’t stop, don’t edit, and don’t worry about whether what you write makes any sense. Eventually, once you’ve made it through all the negative parts, you’ll inevitably start dabbling in potential solutions.

When you feel you’re done, stop, take a break, then read everything again. You’re bound to spot at least a few starting points for cracking your problem!

A great way to pay down all your debts is to start with the smallest one and work your way up the ladder. Since you’ll finish the first one quickly, you’ll speed up getting an actual result, which will inspire you to tackle the next, bigger problem. With our goals, this dynamic also works. Instead of tackling a…