Several years ago I offered motivational courses and was honored to meet some pretty inspirational people who have authored books and made a lot of money sharing their words of wisdom. I recall hearing that if you don't write down your dreams, they will only remain wishes and you will never bring them to fruition. I encourage all my clients to journal their growth, and when they do, they will have a personal testimony of their journey to healing. The pains of the past becomes life's lessons we can pass on to others. The Bible says it this way,
"For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction,
so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope." Romans 15:4
I have always been a huge advocate of journaling. I have written down dreams, goals, regrets, and pains in a yearly journal for as long as I can remember. Often, I am praying for an answer, sometimes I am giving praise for an answered prayer, sometimes I'm just pouring the pain of grief, loss, or loneliness out of my soul onto the pages in hopes of gaining relief. Most days when I journal it brings me clarity for my day and can put things in proper perspective.
When we take our feelings and write them down, we force our minds to analyze them into words. We take it from the emotional and put it into the logical state of consciousness where we can DO something with the information. When we leave the feelings in charge all we can do is FEEL. We hurt, we cry, we grieve, we worry, and we lament. Most of our problems occur when we give control to our feelings and react out of an illogical state of mind. Have you ever done something you later regretted and then had to apologize for that behavior by saying, "I wasn't thinking"? Most of the time we can only function in one state of mind; emotional or logical.
As New Years Eve approaches, most of us are contemplating 2018 though the lens of changes for the future: Do you want to lose weight, start exercising, quit a bad habit, travel, see family more, and the list goes on and on. If you want it to happen, make it unforgettable by writing it down. The more effort and detail you put into the dream, the more it becomes a plan.
At Encouragers Counseling & Training, we also have dreams and would like to turn them into goals for the new year. Please help us turn our dreams into goals by making a year end donation today. Your gift just might be the catalyst for giving one person hope in 2018.