My most impactful journal prompt.
And how to do it.
It’s so often that our final thoughts before sleep are our most profound. Science tells us it’s the transition in Theta brainwaves, not fully conscious but not yet asleep, a liminal space where abstract thinking becomes more fluid. For many of us, it's the time of day where no external inputs can distract us, where our attention can finally turn inward. Such as it is, I had a profound question come to mind as I fell asleep a few nights ago that triggered one of the most impactful journal sessions i’ve ever had the following day.
Im currently in the early stages of developing a wellness-focused hotel and members club in the British countryside. I have never built or even operated a hotel before. We have an opening date of April 2026, which gives us a little over 10 months until opening. Despite having assembled an incredibly experienced team to support on the project, the decision-making and ultimate responsibility still sits with my business partner and I. The incredible thing about doing something you’ve never done before is the learning opportunity. The intimidating thing, however, is the fact you’ve never done it before.
Im asking myself most days “how do I do make this happen?”
However, as I lay down in bed a few nights back, the thought that came to mind was “what if im asking the wrong question?
What if the question is actually; who do I need to become?”
As I sat down the following morning to tackle this question, I started to organise my thoughts into a framework. I wrote out the traits that a leader of such a project would need to possess. Calm, collaborative, honest, detail-orientated, resourceful, etc. Most importantly, I’m seeking to establish the power over myself to respond only to stimulus that aligns with my vision of this person. The long-term goal that this person can achieve has to be more important than the short-term reward of a conflicting behaviour. I then set out to list out all of the behaviours where I do not exercise agency and feel pulled by desires, to the point I feel a lack of control over myself;
I created 4 columns;
Times where I act in opposition to these traits
The internal narrative that I run to justify this behaviour
A new narrative thats more powerful
The controls I can put in place to reduce friction.
As a small example;
I only want to eat whole foods, but when I travel I buy processed snacks (I’m a sucker for a protein bar) and feel awful afterwards.
I justify this behaviour by telling myself that I need to hit my macro targets and just 1 protein bar won’t hurt.
A new narrative would be that it’s not about 1 protein bar, but the mental muscle i’ve worked to accept something below what I expect of myself and a standard I have set.
Take my own, pre-made & whole food snacks to the airport for the plane ride, or use it as an opportunity to fast.
I built this out to around 15 points. As always happens, I found that once I started writing there were things outside of my every day awareness that I was doing that were misaligned, yet these small daily behaviours become who we are. My highest aspiration for myself is agency over myself - to be conscious in the gap between stimulus and response, to make the decision that aligns with who I need to be. In this instance, the person I need to become is inextricably linked with the success of the project.
As the co-founder bringing the project into existence, my role is to make big decisions daily. If I think of the energy state I am in when I make my best decisions, it’s one of calm, openness, awareness, etc. These decisions, especially at this critical stage, can make or break the business. It’s less about what I do, and more about who I become that does it. So really, this exercise is to help me spend more time here, by spending less time being pulled into states of being that I don’t want to be in. Only by bringing them into my awareness can I organise how to move through them.
I’ve shared this exercise with a few people and they’ve found it useful, so I share it here in the hope that it’s the same for you. It’s not about condemning ourselves and everyone’s standards for themselves will be different. You may decide the odd protein bar is okay (which it is for most people) but I know myself to be a person of extremes. This lens of self-awareness tells me that, for me, things need to be black and white, all or nothing. The immediate effect has been that i’ve been able to consistently replace these behaviours with ones more aligned with the vision of who I need to be.
In support of this, I’m returning each day to my journalling practice and reinforcing the vision not just of what I’m building; but who I will be in the process. This act of visualisation helps to support a long-term view over the short-term rewards that capture our attention.
Good luck!