You've Already Forgotten 90% of Your Best Ideas (Here's How to Get Them Back)
Your life is a fuzzy blur.
You know you’ve done great things, but you’re struggling to remember your major accomplishments.
This leads to a feeling of disconnect—you run on autopilot without tapping into your past genius.
How did this happen?
How did you lose yourself?
You’ve spent so much time focusing on the future that you’ve missed the gold mine of the past.
You’ve never made a habit of self-reflection, journaling, or mapping your life. You’re disconnected from your past, and it’s impacting your future.
I’m guilty of this.
I never prioritized my past. I focused only on growth and value.
I learned the hard way that remembering the past is key to the future.
Don’t let that be you.
Today, we’ll explore how journaling and life mapping are essential tools to tap into your past.
Sound bland?
It is if we didn’t supercharge it with AI.
Instead of having you write lengthy unread content, we’ll use emerging technology to do the legwork and provide succinct, actionable insights.
You’ll go from feeling disconnected to making better decisions and accelerating your career growth.
Look Backward to Accelerate Forward
Our past defines us, but unless we’re intentional, yesterday is easy to forget.
Humans have faced this problem since the dawn of memory.
Intentional remembering isn’t new—it’s a principle observed in ancient cultures.
Consider the Exodus story we grew up hearing. One thing that stuck out to me is how often freshly liberated Israel is told to remember they were slaves in Egypt.
Why is such a demand necessary?
Humans are good at forgetting things, even those with sharp minds. Oh, we remember the event, but we warp the details so it no longer guides our future.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-George Santayana
If recently liberated people needed to remember, how much more do you and I need to learn the skill of remembering?
Let’s take Santayana’s statement further:
Those who don’t reflect on their past risk repeating mistakes and losing insights that drive growth.
If you haven’t studied your history—your patterns, strengths, and pivotal moments—you’ll struggle to articulate your value when it matters most.
When seeking growth opportunities, you lack direction.
Mapping your past can plot your trajectory. It can reveal adjacent, complementary skills to pursue immediately to increase your value.
Here’s how I applied this timeless wisdom to my life.
The Personal Historian
When I transitioned from an ICU nurse to a business analyst role, I became aware of the need to remember.
I learned great skills as a Navy reactor operator and a nurse, but now I was in a different world.
I felt like an aircraft carrier without propulsion.
My interviews were a struggle, and once I got a job, I had to learn a new set of skills.
I’ve grown immensely, but since that transition, I feel like I’ve forgotten more than I know.
I hate that feeling.
This January, I decided to become a personal historian—remembering my history was the best way to move forward.
It started with journaling.
But I hate journaling.
By the end of the workday, I’m mentally exhausted. I’ve solved problems, dealt with conflict, and juggled a hundred active projects. I’m spent.
How do I journal?
I set a reminder with a prompt asking me questions about my day.
I use ChatGPT’s tasks feature because it asks different questions daily, breaking the monotony and sparking creativity.
I don’t write.
I use an app called VoiceNotes for an audio journal.
Once VoiceNotes is complete, it automatically transcribes my journal (it can do AI summarization, but I don’t use this often).
I copy the transcript into a custom ChatGPT prompt I created to:
Clean up the transcript.
Provide a short summary.
List the main points.
List the action items.
Create a list of follow-up questions to consider.
Create a list of potential arguments against my transcript. This one is fun!
Create a list of related topics to explore.
I save that output into my note-taking system after reviewing it for insights.
I don’t beat myself up for missing a few days of journaling.
I’m a total nerd, right?
This system has supercharged my managerial skills.
Don’t just take my word for it; try it for yourself.
If you want my prompt, send me a message with the word “prompt” and I’ll send it.
Map Your Life
I’ve recently started using a life map.
It’s the one tool I wish I’d started using years ago. I’ve had it in my head, but putting it on (digital) paper is powerful.
What is a life map?
It’s a visual representation of your skills, interests, and life experiences—a map of everything that makes you you.
It’s your personal way of remembering your past to avoid mistakes and propel future growth.
Notice I said “personal.”
I can’t tell you what will work best for you—but I can share how I created my life map.
I grouped my map under the following major headings:
Core values and motivators
Transformative moments
Family
Hobbies & Interests
Every job I’ve held
Future goal
Most of these are simple lists, but I spent significant time under each job. I listed the duties and explored the core skills required.
For example, as a business analyst, one of my duties was quality analysis—reviewing incident reports and determining the root cause. This required systems thinking—understanding the whole to identify the failure point—and summarizing and synthesizing information to provide a succinct report and a recommendation to prevent future occurrences.
You can use a sheet of paper or a word processor for a bullet point list to develop your own. However, I like visualizing my map to see connections. I chose MindNode because it allows me to see my map visually and gives me a bullet point list output.
Here’s what mine looks like:
As I developed this life map, connections or threads emerged.
Threads are patterns of thinking or acting that reappear regardless of job, industry, or context. They’re your default operating system.
In a future article, we’ll explore the importance of these more. But for this exercise, I wanted to highlight them, and it’s important to mark them (bold, highlight, etc).
You can now add to this life map as you remember more past events or gain new skills or experiences. It will be beneficial for your next interview preparation.
The life map prepares you to answer interview questions intelligently.
But wait, there’s more!
AI unlocks the true potential of this life map.
Creating a life map is a fun exercise, but if you can’t use it immediately, it will end up collecting digital dust.
Enter AI.
With AI, you can provide your life map and receive personalized advice and insights.
You can use any AI model, but I use ChatGPT because I have a Plus subscription for about a year. Its memory feature remembers our conversations, so it gives me personal feedback and recommendations that no other model can match.
Today, I sent my life map to ChatGPT’s latest o3 model and asked the following questions:
Analyze my life map for potential additions.
What are my threads?
What adjacent skills could I learn to complement my existing skill set?
What are other use cases for a "life map"?
The insights were amazing. I could immediately add to my life map and now have a list of skills to learn to level up my career.
You can send your map to an AI model and ask it to help you prepare for an upcoming interview.
With your journal, you can ask the AI to act as a coach and give specific feedback on handling situations, writing reports, or interacting with your boss.
Include instructions for brutal honesty, as some AIs, like ChatGPT, can be sycophantic.
Opportunities are limited only by your imagination.
Create your why.
Face it. It’s hard to make journaling or life mapping a habit, even if you’re excited about it.
Why?
Because you subconsciously filter out what doesn’t provide immediate value.
Using AI with journaling and life mapping is key to success because it provides immediate, actionable results.
People pay hundreds or thousands a month for professional coaching. With my method, you can get immediate, daily coaching for free.
I schedule a short time at the end of my workday for my audio journal. Then, I schedule a 30-minute block on Fridays to review the AI outputs and reflect on that week’s insights.
It’s made me a better manager.
This habit can unlock your hidden potential.
Your action plan
If you’re ready to stop letting life pass by and use the past for growth, here’s a quick recap of the steps you can take today:
Workday Journaling: Establish a daily habit of recording a voice note journal of what went well, what didn’t, and what you can improve tomorrow.
Bonus: Transcribe the journal and send it to AI for analysis. Reply to this email for the prompt.
Map Your Life: Use mind-mapping software like MindNode or XMind to map your skills, interests, and life experiences. This serves as a reminder and helps you make connections.
Bonus: Send your map to AI for analysis. It can help you improve it, learn adjacent skills, or prepare for an upcoming interview.
Periodic Review: Schedule a weekly and/or monthly time block to review your journal and life map. If you’ve used AI, dig into the output for key takeaways.
Bonus: Use AI again with the key takeaways. Then, copy and paste them into AI and ask it to create an action plan.
Lastly, don’t get overwhelmed. Give yourself grace.
These things take time.
If you want to take one small step, start journaling. Most smartphones have a dictation mode where you can talk and it will type into a note program, so if you don’t want to invest in a specific app, you can use that. You don’t have to worry about spelling or grammar; AI will fix that.
Try it today.
Experiment with different prompts until you find one that gives you valuable insights.
Here’s a truth you need to embrace.
You won’t always feel like journaling. You can’t complete your Life Map in a single day. You’ll get distracted.
Don’t let setbacks become reasons to quit.
Your future depends on your use of the past.
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Id love to know which program you used to create your life map. :)