The 7-Minute Writing Exercise That Can Expose Your Biggest Blind Spot

One pen. Seven minutes

Photo by Martin Baron on Unsplash

I was disappearing.

And I mean really disappearing, vanishing in real-time in fluorescent-lit conference rooms, in Zoom squares where my face became just another thumbnail, in email threads where my words evaporated like they were written in invisible ink.

My heart would pound before every meeting. My palms would sweat as I typed responses. My voice would crack when I finally spoke up. And then…nothing. Silence. Someone else’s nod. My idea, ten minutes later, coming out of someone else’s mouth to a chorus of “brilliant!”

I’d drive home gripping the steering wheel so hard my knuckles turned white, replaying every moment I’d made myself smaller, quieter, less.

For years, I thought I just needed to fix my delivery. Be more assertive. Speak up faster. Lean in harder.

Turns out I was looking in completely the wrong direction.

The real problem was hiding in my blind spot: that psychological dead zone we absolutely cannot see about ourselves, no matter how many therapy sessions we clock or how much we journal. I found it in seven minutes, with nothing but a ballpoint pen that was running out of ink and the back of an envelope.

The Pattern I Couldn’t See

Blind spots aren’t minor gaps in self-awareness. They’re viruses in your operating system, running quietly in the background, corrupting everything.

Mine had been running my whole career: Shrink yourself so no one feels threatened.

I didn’t choose this consciously. But there it was, softening every sentence. Adding “just” and “maybe” and “I could be wrong, but...” to everything. Training people to overlook me.

The worst part? I thought I was being strategic. A team player.

Actually, I was committing professional suicide.

Here’s what makes blind spots so dangerous: you can’t script a future your subconscious doesn’t believe is possible.

I could write “I’m a visionary leader” until my hand cramped, but if somewhere deep down I believed taking up space would cost me belonging, my nervous system would sabotage every move toward that future.

Your brain’s pattern-recognition system, the Reticular Activating System (RAS) filters reality based on what you already believe about yourself. When a hidden belief whispers “you’re not ready,” your RAS highlights every piece of evidence that confirms it and deletes everything that contradicts it.

You have to see the thing corrupting your operating system before you can rewrite the code.

I found mine in seven minutes.

The Exercise That Changed Everything

I discovered this accidentally, hands dusty with chalk in a workshop, trying to help someone else see their patterns.

It’s so simple it feels like a trick. Seven minutes. One pen. Whatever paper you can find.

Minutes 1-2: Write “People see me as...” and complete it 10 times without lifting your pen.

No pausing. No thinking. No editing. Let your hand move. Write whatever surfaces, even if it contradicts the line before.

Minutes 3-4: Write “I actually am...” and complete it 10 times.

Same rules. Speed over accuracy. Your unconscious mind knows things your conscious mind has been censoring for years.

Minutes 5-6: Write “The gap between these two is...” and describe what you see.

Your blind spot crawls into the light here. Hunt for the pattern. The theme hiding in plain sight.

Minute 7: Write “This blind spot keeps me from...” and finish it.

Connect your discovery to what it’s been stealing from you.

What Surfaced in My Seven Minutes

The pen felt hot in my hand by minute three. My chest tightened by minute five. By minute seven, tears burned behind my eyes.

People see me as: capable, intelligent, helpful, supportive, professional, accommodating, team-oriented, safe, easy to work with, reliable, non-threatening, pleasant.

My handwriting got messier with each word.

I actually am: visionary, disruptive, magnetic, the person who sees patterns others miss and isn’t afraid to name them. Transformative. Unstoppable. The one who reshapes everything once she stops performing smallness.

The gap didn’t just reveal itself. It detonated.

I’d spent years performing a version of myself that wouldn’t scare anyone. Someone who fit in meeting rooms. Someone who made other people comfortable while I suffocated.

Meanwhile, the real me, the one who could see three moves ahead, who had ideas that could reshape everything, was dying under the weight of my own restraint.

My blind spot came into sharp relief: I made myself invisible because I believed my full power would make people leave.

That belief had been driving my career, my relationships, my entire life while I sat in the passenger seat.

Why It Hit So Hard

The exercise works because you’re writing faster than your self-image can censor.

When you don’t pause, don’t edit, don’t let your pen stop moving, you bypass the part of your brain obsessed with managing how you look. You slip past the security system.

Your hand writes things your mouth would never say out loud.

And when you explicitly ask your brain to identify the gap between who people see and who you actually are, you activate a searchlight instead of fumbling with a flashlight. The pattern that’s been running in the background your whole life suddenly glows in the dark.

You’re not discovering something new. You’re finally seeing what’s been there all along.

What Happened Next

The next morning, I walked into a board meeting with a proposal I’d been sitting on for weeks.

My hands weren’t shaking. That was the first sign something had shifted.

When my slot came up, I opened my mouth and heard myself say: “We’re leaving half a million dollars on the table.”

The executive director’s eyebrows went up. Surprised, but not angry.

My old pattern kicked in immediately: Soften it. Add a qualifier. Make an exit.

I felt my mouth forming the word “Maybe…”

Then I stopped. Closed my mouth. Let the silence sit.

“Keep going,” the executive director said.

So I did. No hedging. No apologies. Just the strategy I’d been sitting on because I thought being quiet was strategic.

Three people started taking notes. The development director pulled up her laptop. Someone asked a question that assumed I’d already thought this through (I had). That proposal brought in $497,000 in one quarter.

But the real shift was the two seconds between feeling the old pattern kick in and choosing not to follow it. That’s where transformation actually lives: in the gap between impulse and action.

The Future You Can’t Write Until You Do This

Once you see what’s living in your blind spot, you can write a future that directly contradicts it.

For me, that meant scripting a version of myself who takes up space like it’s oxygen: freely, unapologetically, without asking permission.

I started writing as if that version already existed: “I walk into meetings and people lean in. My ideas land with impact because I deliver them with full power. I’m magnetic because I’ve stopped performing smallness.”

This is Future Scripting, teaching your nervous system to recognize the future you’ve written in detail.

But you can’t write that future powerfully if you haven’t first excavated what’s been running the show in the dark.

Seven Minutes. Right Now.

Grab whatever pen is within reach. Whatever paper you can find.

People see me as...

I actually am...

The gap between these two is...

This blind spot keeps me from...

Seven minutes to surface what you haven’t been able to name.

You’ve been disappearing long enough.

Time to become unmissable.

Write it first. Live it second.

Do the exercise right now. Not later. Now. Then reply with one sentence:

'My blind spot is ___.' I read every single response.

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