I see this work for a lot of dreamers and it's always good to be reminded of it. I think it's noteworthy that your activity is not just motivation and desire, it's goal-oriented planning and expectation. It's one thing to have a burst of motivation but that is often short lived. Instead, when you set your mind to a goal, plan out a new activity, and commit to repeating it for a period of time, you're activating many areas and skills in your brain. Creating the visual data of a diagram hits a different part of the brain. There's also an element of belief and optimism that it will work, and that aspect lights up yet another set of neurons. When you devote that much mental effort to something, your unconscious mind recognizes that this is something important and comes in to assist in achieving what you want.