Are you familiar with the Youtube rabbit hole where you watch one video that leads into the next and so on so forth and all of a sudden an hour has passed? I’m like that when it comes to reading articles. One article shares information from another *click*. The next has a video with an interesting story *click*. Next my mind makes a connection from the video to an idea I’ve been thinking about *google search*. The rabbit hole can last hours and sometimes in the rabbit hole I’ll be struck with an idea I want to share, and in this case immediately write about. Writing things down as soon as I think about them isn’t anything fresh or unique. You shouldn’t be surprised that many successful business people, politicians, and other accomplished individuals acknowledge writing as a winning habit that is a crucial part of their success. Writing everything and anything ensures you don’t forget any idea, which is where the winning ideas come from.

In my edition of the “reading rabbit hole” my first stop was finding The Millionaire Mindset That Will Help You Reach Your Goals. The tagline about “bullet-proof habits that help millionaires” is what intrigued me. I’m all about building new habits and I started thinking about what habits successful entrepreneurs, coaches, and even administrative support people have. It was only one minute into the video before I made a mental bookmark and was off searching for research about writing things down, the first tip.

While exploring I came across a book sample written by Washingtonian Dr. Henriette Anne Klauser, Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want — and Getting It! It is an entire book dedicated to the principles of how and why you should write things down, whether goals, ideas or shopping lists, and by putting it into the universe we can make it happen. I’m a huge proponent of writing things down. It’s important to me to get them on paper and off my mind, to write words into existence and putting it into the universe. This book is 20 chapters with principles to follow and various stories from others who practiced them. This isn’t a marketing campaign for Dr. Klauser’s book, but as someone who is fascinated by this topic, I’m all in.

I did return to the original article and video and learned a few new tips while refreshing on the others. Though I’d recommend watching the video yourself and looking over the two-minute read, here it is summed up.

1. Write things down. This means any idea and review them regularly.
2. Relax and reflect on your financial goals. Relaxing is key because that’s when ideas are likely to pop up.
3. Fantasize by using the “magic wand technique”. The magic wand technique asks you to imagine that all financial obstacles have been removed.
4. Project forward and think about previous financial goals. Think to the future 3-5 years and imagine what you can do now to make it a reality.
5. Practice mind-storming. This was a new concept for me and I recommend checking out the thorough walk-through of this practice. The idea is that you state your goal in the form of a question then ‘mind storm’ 20 answers to that question.
6. Save your money. Sound like a no-brainer? If you started saving $100/month and investing it when you were 20 years old, by the time you retire at age 65 you’d be a millionaire! It’s never too late to start.

“Write it down to be clear in your commitment to the possibility, and then activity here will create related movement there. Write it down to make it happen.” – Dr. Klauser