What you focus on expands! Have you heard that before? There are many examples of this in our daily lives. For example, if you wake up feeling sad and down, the day usually serves up many events to make you feel even worse. Not good for boosting performance, is it?
One way to break that cycle and accelerate your success is by engaging in what we call high performance journaling, a practice that captures your accomplishments and fuels you to achieve so much more.
What is Journaling?
Different people define journaling in different ways, and to keep it simple, let us regard it as a habit of writing down one’s feelings, thoughts, ambitions and so on. It is a habit, meaning that you do it on a regular basis (daily, for example).
Journaling is primarily intended for your own private consumption, so no other person is expected to read what you have written down.
The most important words that you will ever write are those that no one else will ever read. What you write in your journal is some of the most impactful writing that you will ever come across because it helps you get clarity on ideas running around in your head.
What are the Key Benefits?
1. Harnessing Clarity and Focus
Journaling provides a structured platform to articulate your objectives, brainstorm strategies, and prioritise your ambitions. By putting pen to paper, you create a roadmap that guides your actions and prevents distractions from derailing your progress.
2. Strengthening Self-Reflection
Journaling offers a dedicated space to contemplate your accomplishments, setbacks, and lessons learned. Regularly reviewing your entries can illuminate patterns in your decision-making, enabling you to refine your approach and make informed choices moving forward. Starting a gratitude journal is an easy way to reflect on your daily wins and go to bed with a positive mindset.
3. Cultivating Emotional Intelligence
By expressing your thoughts and emotions in a private space, you become more attuned to your own feelings and reactions. This heightened awareness translates to improved communication, empathy, and conflict resolution—essential competencies for effective leadership and collaboration.
Journaling can also reduce stress, in addition to helping you to track your progress towards a defined goal. While you journal, you come face to face with who you really are, and this enables you to identify what is going well and what you need to improve or change. This is what makes journaling the most important writing you will ever come across.
What are Some Examples of Journaling?
Morning Pages
This is a good way to create a habit and stick to it. Although people are encouraged to wake up slightly earlier to write down their thoughts and feelings and/or goals for the day, it doesn’t matter if you forget or don’t have time. You can always catch up later, although it’s a good idea to make a note of the time for future reference.
Gratitude Journals
A good idea for people who are trying to become more positive or build positive habits, a gratitude journal allows you to record all the things you are thankful for. It could be a simple as 3 things I am grateful for today. These could vary each day, or it could be that you are thankful for similar things each and every day. Even if you never read it back, it’s a good exercise to remember your blessings.
Single Words
For people who don’t feel like they will have enough time to commit each day to keep a full diary or journal, you can start out using single words. Think about one word that describes how you’re feeling that day and write it down alongside the date. As the weeks go by, you may find that you notice patterns, or you might become curious about your own feelings and start keeping a more detailed journal.
Creative Journals
As well as writing the facts about you and your life, you can experiment with your creative side when using this journaling style. You can either use creative tools such as paints and pencils to demonstrate with art how you feel, or you can write short pieces of music to describe your emotions.
Photograph Journals
In the age of technology, it’s perfectly reasonable to take a photo of yourself every morning or evening and keep a diary. You can either do this by keeping them in an individual folder on your phone or computer with a short description for each one, or you can print them in batches and keep them in a scrapbook with a few sentences to describe how you were feeling that particular day.
There are many tools that you can adopt.
How do I Get Started?
Try these tips to help you get started with journaling:
- Try to write every day. Set aside a few minutes every day to write. This will help you to write in your journal regularly.
- Make it easy. Keep a pen and paper handy at all times. Then when you want to write down your thoughts, you can. You can also keep a journal on your smartphone.
- Write or draw whatever feels right. Your journal doesn’t need to follow any certain structure. It’s your own private place to discuss and create whatever you want to express your feelings. Let the words and ideas flow freely. Don’t worry about spelling mistakes or what other people might think.
- Use your journal as you see fit. You don’t have to share your journal with anyone. If you do want to share some of your thoughts with trusted friends and loved ones, you could show them parts of your journal.
Keeping a journal helps you create order when your world feels like it’s in chaos. You get to know yourself by revealing your most private fears, thoughts, and feelings. Look at your writing time as personal relaxation time. It’s a time when you can de-stress and wind down. Write in a place that’s relaxing and soothing, maybe with a cup of tea. Look forward to your journaling time. And know that you’re doing something good for your mind and body.
Journaling Prompts
Journal prompts are questions, suggestions, or ideas that can help inspire you to write in your journal. Journaling prompts can be specific questions or statements that encourage you to reflect on a particular topic, theme, or aspect of your life.
Example Morning Journal Questions – 5 Questions
Morning Question #1: What am I GRATEFUL for?
Science confirms that gratitude is the antidote to fear. And that you must defend yourself against all the negative information out there, through the regular practice of deliberately recognising your blessings. No matter how small. This question ensures you do this daily.
Morning Question #2: Where am I WINNING?
To fuel your momentum and protect your positive energy, it’s essential to constantly be celebrating your progress. Noting your micro-wins in your notebook is a great way to battle-proof your hope and bullet-proof your inspiration. So, you stay on course, when hard influences try to get you off it.
Morning Question #3: What will I LET GO of today?
To not forgive your hurters and to harbour resentment towards those who have wronged you is to, sort of, carry them with you through your days on your back. Forgiveness isn’t condoning their bad behaviour. Not at all. It’s simply understanding that everyone does the best they can do based on the level of consciousness they are at (even if their best is a mess). So, this question allows for some emotional healing and resentment release on the pages of your morning journal. So, you don’t carry the baggage into your brighter future.
Morning Question #4: What does my IDEAL DAY ahead look like?
Just a few lines on what a strong and productive day looks like will lock your focus into what’s most important versus keeping you busy being busy. And prevent you from climbing mountains that at the end of this year turn out to be the wrong ones.
Morning Question #5: What needs to be SAID at the end?
Ok. This one’s super key. Write a quick paragraph reminding yourself as to what you want said about you, your character, your accomplishments and your kindness—on the last day of your fine life. This ritual trains your brain to help you live to the point. So, when you arrive at the end, you concentrate on the right priorities. And lived your life well.
Example End of Day Prompts – The 3-Question Journaling Method
The following 3-Question Journaling approach is an actionable way to accelerate your success.
End of Day Question #1: What was GREAT about today?
Spend some time writing down 3-5 things that stood out for you as accomplishments or positive experiences on that day. The purpose of writing these down is to nurture positivity within you and set you up to work towards and expect more positive outcomes or experiences.
You may not know this, but human beings are wired to spot and respond to negativity. It is called the negativity bias, and it was hardwired into our ancestors in order to make them quickly spot threats to their life, like snakes or wild animals.
Negativity bias is the reason why the news is always full of stories on disasters, crises and other negative events. Good news rarely dominates the media for long, but bad news does.
By journaling about what was great about your day, you break this negativity bias pattern and make your senses more aware and discerning of positives.
End of Day Question #2: What did I LOVE about this day?
This question prompts you to go a step further than simply pointing out what was great. You go deeper into writing about what you specifically loved about some of the great things that happened in the course of the day.
By doing so, you recall all the positive feelings that coursed through you while you had those great experiences. In the process, your mind and body will re-live that experience, and “happy biochemicals” like endorphins will be released, giving you a boost and helping you to relax.
The subconscious mind can then get to work putting together a plan to bring even more positive experiences into your life so that you can keep enjoying those feel-good biochemicals coursing through your system. That is how a cycle of success after success can be strengthened.
End of Day Question #3: What can I do BETTER tomorrow?
The third equally important question to answer while you journal is centred on identifying areas of improvement that you can start working on tomorrow, not next week or next year. Lasting success is built upon continuous improvement, and the third question in this journaling approach enables you to be intentional about what you want to improve upon based on your experience each day.
When you think through your day and identify what didn’t go so great, identify what needs to be improved and include this on your to-do list for the next day.
These incremental improvements may not seem like much when viewed individually, but they add up over time and result in major transformations. Those are the “atomic habits” that James Clear writes about.
Tips for Success with Journaling
- Be honest
We mentioned that the most important words you will ever write are those ones that no one else will ever read. What makes those words in your journal so important and so impactful is because they are usually written from deep down within you. No one is going to read them, so there is no fear of judgment or a desire to impress.
Brutal honesty is crucial when journaling because it helps you to come face to face with who you really are, what you stand for, and where you would like to see yourself long term.
Be as honest as you can ever be while journaling, and you will reap rewards beyond what you had ever imagined to be possible.
- Be consistent
It is important to be consistent with your journaling practice if you are to enjoy the benefits that it brings. Commit to journaling every evening and you will reap the rewards if you stick to this habit.
You can only track what you measure, so we also recommend that your consistency also includes the specific broad areas that you journal about. In the 3-question process discussed earlier, we recommend that your efforts be directed at just those areas captured in those questions.
Over time, you can see how you have been evolving with regard to those aspects which are the subject of your journaling. As the results pile up or as you see improvements, you will be encouraged to become more committed to journaling, and your success loop will be set.
- Review your journal entries
Another important tip to get the best out of journaling is to review the entries you make on a regular basis. You want to accelerate your success, and not reviewing the material in your journal is counterproductive.
When you review what you wrote down, you get a glimpse into your thought processes and emotions, and then derive action steps to move you forward. You also keep your long-term goals front and centre in your mind, and that helps you to be clear about your priorities on a day-to-day basis.
The magic happens when you reflect upon what transpired during the day and then map out how things can be improved.
- Ditch your laptop
We live in a digital world, and there are lots of digital tools that you can use to keep your journal. However, we recommend that you go the old school way and buy a notebook into which you will make your journal entries. This shouldn’t be restricted to a basic, dull notebook, but let it be a physical book that you write in.
Two key reasons back this recommendation. First, writing using a pen somehow slows you down and allows you to fully engage with your thoughts. This can’t happen if you are quickly typing a word document on your laptop or other device. We want your thoughts engaged, and physically holding a pen and writing on paper makes you fully involved in capturing your thoughts and reflecting upon them.
Secondly, digital devices are a source of distractions. You could be in the middle of making a journal entry and a pop-up alerts you about a message from a friend or workmate. Out goes your focused attention on journaling, and it will take time and effort to bring yourself back into the moment.
So, rather than think that you will fight the temptations or distractions, avoid them by sitting quietly away from all your gadgets while you journal.
Wrapping it up…
Journaling can make a profound difference in all areas of your life, be it your relationships, productivity at work, life goals and even your health.
Start with the tips discussed above and later tweak it to suit the different needs you have as you evolve. Document the magic as it happens!
If you would like some help taking your personal and business growth to the next level, you’re ready for a business coach. Book a 15-minute call to see if coaching is right for you here: www.TimeWithShane.com
