People who write down their goals achieve them at a higher success rate than those who don’t.

The living proof of this is Patrick Grove: an entrepreneur who built a billionaire-dollar business empire by taking five companies public. His secret? Keeping a journal.

When Grove started journaling, he used the first two writing sessions to complain about his life. Once that was out of his system, he moved on to writing about what he wanted.

Most of us think about our life in terms of “Why?” (“Why did this happen? Why am I not like that?”) Grove’s breakthrough came from changing the tone of his journal from “Why?” to “How?”

It can start off as a fun exercise to brainstorm a plan that may seem practically impossible. Grove began a new journal to explore the question: “How do I make $100m in 12 months?”

Within 12 months, he achieved it. Then Grove upped the goal to $1bn. Within 24 months, his company Iflix was worth over half a billion.

Granted, Grove already had a background as an entrepreneur. When the dot-com bubble burst in 1999, his first company went from being worth $20m to owing $4m.

At the age of 24, Grove had to downsize his business from 300 employees across five countries … to 30 in one. His mother’s life savings, which he’d used as seed money, were all gone.

But worse than having no money, Grove had no sense of clarity. He went to bed every night fantasizing that his building would blow up while he slept, just to put an end to his misery.

Then, after picking up a copy of Anthony Robbins’ book Unlimited Power, Grove got inspired to train himself in the art of self-communication. Learning to keep a journal was a central part of that process, and helped Grove turn his life around. Ok, sounds great – but how do you do it?