The other night I watched a cool horror movie.

About a guy who kidnapped a girl, put her in a cage.

Then he found out the girl was a secret serial killer.

She out-framed him, and from within the cage, talked him into killing somebody.

In the end, she was out, he was in the cage.

Part of the supporting evidence of her being crazy was her journal.

He’d snuck into her apartment and found it.

And in her journal were a bunch of crazy, serial-killer ramblings.

This seems to be a common movie theme.

A way to show the viewer the mind of the crazy dude.

In “Seven,” for example, they found the guy’s journals and they were all filled with crazy ideas about how he’d like to slaughter people.

Perhaps the most famous inner mind ramblings, shown through the writings of the crazy guy was in “The Shining.”

During the whole movie the character was writing his novel.

Then his wife found it, and it had all been one sentence, over and over and over.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

This was the big “reveal” when she realized her husband was a nutcase.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty lazy writing technique.

“How can we show the guy’s crazy? I know, we’ll have a character find his journal and it will be filled with crazy ideas!”

But more unfortunately, it kind of gets the idea out there that only “crazy” people write in journals.

In reality, the opposite is true.

By taking the time to write down your thoughts, you make them real.

Any ideas, creative inspirations, even raw data from conversations, is valuable to write down.

ESPECIALLY if you are doing any self improvement work.

Journaling is a fantastic way to develop momentum.

For example, if you are expanding social confidence, it’s a great way to “keep score.”

Write down how many people you made eye contact with, how many you smiled at.

If you don’t write it down, it’s easy to lose your successes in the shuffle of everything else going on in your mind.

But by setting a clear target, taking data, and writing down any ideas to help further progress, you’ll virtually GUARANTEE your forward momentum.

What kinds of things can you improve?

What kinds of things do you want to improve?

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NLP Mind Magic