I began keeping a journey journal, my Power Notes, six years ago when I left my job with the NAACP. My dear friend, Stephanie, was a journal fanatic. I don’t know anybody who wrote more religiously than Stephanie did. It was an inspiration to me (although I’ve never been as consistent as she was in writing in it daily). In my seminars, I’ve found that men are much more resistant to keeping a journal than women are. So if you’re someone who thinks that writing in a journal is only for women or metrosexual, sensitive men, don’t think of it as a journal, and don’t call it a journal. Instead, call it your “power notes,” or anything that makes you feel gangsta enough to do it. All you need to do is log your commitments every day.

Also, many men don’t realize that they already do this, they just don’t do it on a personal level. I know men who constantly write Power Notes to themselves about how they’re going to take over their company, or get to the next level, or achieve world domination, or even hook up with some woman. However, they often don’t feel that the same thing is necessary when it’s how they feel about where they are in other areas of their lives (or in life in general) and what they’ve done so far in their lives. However, all of these things are essential to your plan.

After all, your plan can’t be about everybody else and never address the personal side of your life. If all you’re doing is creating strategy about everybody else, you’re neglecting the one thing that you actually have control over. You’re addressing the professional side of you, but not paying attention to the whole you.

Resonating a little bit more with the brothers (and I mean brothers in the fraternity of manhood), a man’s Power Notes might include: “What will help me be a better son/brother?” or a more powerful husband, or a more powerful father. If Power Notes are what men want to call this assignment, that’s fine. At the end of the day, it’s all about assessing where you are, what you’re doing well, what you’re not doing well, and then creating positive reinforcements that encourage you to reach your personal best.

Therefore, part of what this journal or these Power Notes accomplish is to chronicle your progress and your challenges in each area.