Dream Sorting

Big, medium, and Lentil-sized plans & a prompt for conjuring it all

For the first time in as long as I can remember, my calendar is empty.

The last few years have been a nonstop sprint—our documentary American Symphony, my first art exhibit, The Book of Alchemy, the book tour, the Alchemy Journal, the New Year’s Journaling Project—so much motion that momentum began making decisions for me. This sudden quiet feels strange. Outside the daily rhythms of normal work and life, there’s nothing scheduled. No big work trips. No deadlines. No mountains to climb. (Except for leukemia and chemo, which rudely declined my cancellation request.)

Looking ahead, I feel a mix of excitement and unease. It’s been years since I’ve had so little I was required to do. Left to myself, I’m adept at filling empty space with busyness—but I’m determined to treat this pause as an invitation: to rest, to step out of the weeds and survey the terrain of my life, to consider what I truly want next, and to move with intention.

In moments like this, I find myself wishing for an office with walls made entirely of whiteboards. In lieu of a remodel, I did the next best thing: I went office-supply shopping and came home with a stack of giant Post-it notes. They’re now on my walls, waiting patiently to be filled with 2026 dreams and ideas—some ambitiously big, some modest, and some inevitably Lentil-sized.

As January closes and February opens—at a moment in a world thick with rage, heartbreak, and uncertainty—I want to share a prompt that has been a companion of mine for nearly six years. It’s one I’ve returned to in hospital rooms, while on the road, in moments of clarity and in seasons when the future felt terrifyingly opaque. It’s no exaggeration to say that it changed my life.

The prompt is called “A Day in the Life of My Dreams,” and it comes from my friend Hollye Jacobs.

I first began writing to it in the early days of the pandemic, when I felt adrift—professionally, personally, existentially. I knew I was ready for a new chapter, but I had no map, no clear next step, no reassuring sense of momentum. My mind did what it does best: it panicked, it scolded, it catastrophized. It told me I was behind. That I was failing. That worth required the certainty of a plan, milestones, visibility, proof.

This prompt interrupted that spiral. Instead of asking What should I do? or What comes next? it pushed me toward something gentler and more to the point: What do you want? What becomes visible when you let imagination do the looking for a while?

Each morning, I described—without irony, without editing—a single ordinary day in a future I wanted to inhabit. Who I woke up next to. Where I lived. How I spent my time. How my body felt as the day unfolded.

Something shifted. The future, which had felt sealed shut, began to crack open. Possibility crept back in. And slowly—almost suspiciously—pieces of those imagined days began to materialize, not through any miraculous act of manifestation, but because I could articulate what I wanted and make small, incremental shifts toward it when opportunities appeared.

I trace many of the best things in my life back to this prompt: my marriage; our decision to move to a farm; finding ways to live in community, close to friends and family; writing this newsletter; building this space with you.

That’s why I wanted to re-share this prompt today. If you’re feeling stalled, scared, or unsure how to imagine yourself moving forward, consider this an offering. Creation begins with imagination. And sometimes the bravest thing we can do is describe a future that still feels fragile—and keep writing toward it.

For the month of January, we gathered here—quietly, imperfectly—to write our way through. Some of you journaled every day. Some journaled when you could. Some stood near the doorway, curious and observing.

And despite the inevitable interruptions, something real took place. I want to pause and say this plainly: your words have been a genuine astonishment to me.

From Jana: “The 30-day journaling has been a lifeline in a way I could never have predicted.”

From Giuliana: “This intimate, peopled ecosystem of emotional landscapes is a web I want to be part of.”

From Terri: “I need these prompts more than ever; they have sustained me in the wee hours as worries begin to consume me.”

I’ve been deeply moved by what emerged from our Rilke-inspired experiment in living the questions now, trusting that—someday—we might live our way into the answers.

If you missed it—we gathered all the prompts from our 30-Day Project into one simple post. You can find them here.

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis, Creation of the World III (1905)

Prompt 369. A Day in the Life of My Dreams by Hollye Jacobs

A few years ago, I was professionally betwixt and between.

I was ready for a new chapter but found myself rudderless, not knowing which way to turn or how to proceed. I felt wobbly and uncomfortable in the unknowing. Throughout my life, I had always felt a magnetic pull to particular lines of work, from my time at Ralph Lauren to hospice nursing and grief counseling to writing a book about my cancer journey. Finding meaning in work had always come quite naturally, but suddenly the natural pull was gone.

In its absence, my reflex was to dive into bottomless despair. This involved self-­criticism on a good day and feelings of worthlessness on a normal day. I had fully subscribed to this culture’s edict that in order to be worthy, I had to produce, earn money, accumulate accolades, and jump through all the hoops. Living in this state created a vicious cycle that was wholly exhausting. I realized I had to put a plug in this energy suck.

I did this through an exercise that I call “A Day in the Life of My Dreams.” Every morning, I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat down with my journal to write. I turned off my thinking brain and opened the door for my dreams to emerge.

From the time I started writing “A Day in the Life of My Dreams,” my perspective brightened and my energy lightened. The stuckness that I felt evaporated. To my utter surprise and delight, I found that I began to have the exact experiences that just so happened to be in my dream life. As George Bernard Shaw wrote, “Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will.”

This is your prompt:

Imagine yourself at some point in the future—­maybe a year from now, maybe five, maybe ten—­living the life of your dreams. This is a normal day, not a holiday or a special day; rather, it is a typical and perfect everyday. What do you see? What do you feel? What do you hear? What do you taste? Who is there with you in your dream day? Describe the day in present tense, from the moment you wake up to the moment that you go to sleep. Creation begins with imagination.

Today’s Contributor—

Hollye Jacobs, RN, MS, MSW, is a resilience coach, nurse, speaker, and author. As a coach, Hollye supports and empowers people as they navigate life’s inevitable challenges and transitions with strength, confidence, and compassion, and she shares practical strategies to help people find clarity, purpose, and a path forward. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, she writes about her experience in her New York Times bestselling book, The Silver Lining: A Supportive and Insightful Guide to Breast Cancer. Find her on Instagram @hollyejacobs.

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