I’ve always thought journaling to be a bit pointless. You just write down your thoughts as a more or less “record” of your life. My life wasn’t that exciting, so what was there to even write about? Do I talk about how I had eggs for breakfast? Do I talk about how I did well on a school assignment? All of these things seemed boring to me and I didn’t want to waste any time in pursuing something that didn’t bring me value. I was always the person in school who would ask the question, “When I am I ever going to use this?” If the teacher didn’t have a solid answer, I would put that knowledge at the bottom of the priority list of my focus. This is what journaling felt like. I didn’t feel like I would ever use it.
I gave it a few honest shots over the years. I remember the first journal I intentionally bought was a leather bound journal when I was visiting Washington DC. I thought it looked really good, I was going through some changes in my life, and I really wanted to write about it. So I decided to commit to writing in a journal every single day. So I began by writing what I was going through. It was a powerful journaling session and I thought to myself that I would definitely be able to do this. But as life became “normal,” the habit disappeared. Who knows there that journal is now. But I decided to give it another shot a few years later. Yet again, as I was going through a challenging time in my life. This time, I thought that I would have a system. I would stick to a prescribed method that another person has come up with because I knew that had to work. I bought the Bullet Journal where you essentially are guided through each and everyday. I opened the first page and felt empowered, thoughtful, and ready to take it seriously. The first page took me about 25 minutes to fill out because I wanted it to be just right. I thought that this was the greatest journaling method because it was actually working. It forced me to sit and think, be grateful, recognize things that I wanted to improve, and I knew that this is what I would stick with forever.
Now, a side note about me. I am the type of person who commits to something once I commit to it. When I begin something, I aim to finish it, no matter how difficult the process. If it is a book, I will finish every single page in the book before I move on, even if I absolutely hate the book. It is almost as if I don’t have the ability to stop halfway through because, to me, that is quitting. So I stick it out and then move onto something else. I’ll admit, this has its advantages and disadvantages. One of the big advantages is that I am persistent and I can endure a lot of challenge, whether that is mental or physical. This definitely aids in the entrepreneurial side of my life. But where it doesn’t help me is knowing when something is detrimental to my life. I like to consider it being stubborn but I will be on the sinking ship, knowing full well it is sinking, holding onto every last bit of hope that a miracle will happen. But I will do this knowing that there won’t be. It is a weird space to find myself because the logical side of my mind says get out of it but the heart centered side says to stick with it. But one of the things that I am most thankful for in this process is giving everything a try, from beginning to end, and understanding the value that it provided me.
When it came to the Bullet Journal, that 25 minutes slowly became 20 minutes. Then 15, 10, 5, and then just a few scribbles. My life felt repetitive. I was grateful for the same things everyday, struggled with mostly the same things everyday, and saw it more as a task to check off than an actual check in on my life. I finished the book but didn’t buy another one. I deemed it not to be valuable. But this doesn’t mean that it wasn’t valuable at all. It just means that it didn’t work for me. One of the biggest things that I have realized about journaling or any type of mindfulness is that it is all about finding the method that works for YOU. I always recommend trying everything once, but don’t just follow a method because the successful person does it. Follow something because it is something you can do every single day. Follow a method that is uniquely yours because it will actually be exactly what you need.
So after taking another few years off of journaling, I decided to give it one more shot. This time, I got a blank notebook and decided that I was going to just journal however I thought would be most valuable to me. Yes, I am about to tell you the method that I use to journal but I am also going to tell you that you should not just follow this mindlessly. If you want to give it a shot, go for it. If it works for you, even better. But I would suggest even making adjustments to it so that it is something that feels uniquely yours, and not just a copy of my method. Now that I began journaling this way, I found that I can do this everyday for the rest of my life. I have missed a few days, and when I first missed a day I felt like a failure. But now it is something that I crave every day, I look forward to it, and it is time that is solely for me.
So for each page of the journal, I begin by writing the day, the date, and the time of day. It pretty much looks like this…. Monday | November 27th, 2023 | Morning. It could be afternoon, evening, but I found that this gives me a sense of time in my life. It isn’t because I really go back and look at my journals, but that it grounds me to where I am at in a singular point in time. I then write three words that represent how I am feeling in that exact moment. It’s not based on the future, it isn’t based on the past, it is purely in that exact moment. It could be frustrated, excited, family, hungry, fearful, sleepy, whatever comes to mind. I have found that this primes the brain with emotions rather than events, making it a much deeper exploration of the self. Then, I begin just writing. It is a complete stream of consciousness for a page in my journal. The lines are pretty small so it takes about 15–20 minutes to write, but there is no editing, no paragraphs, literally just writing. I find that about four or five lines in, my hand is moving on its own and I start writing stuff that I didn’t think I was feeling. It literally just comes out as words on the paper. At the very end of the page, I skip the second to last line and then, on the last line, I write a one line sentence that sums up what I think of the whole session. It’s simple, effective, and usually a sort of mantra that I carry with myself until my next journaling session. What I find fascinating is sometimes the difference between the top three words and the bottom sentence. Sometimes, it can be consistent and other times it can be wildly different. This is the value of journaling for me.
Journaling has been one of the most transformational tools that I have in my life. Between that, breath work, and meditation, it usually resets my body and mind so that I can take on anything that comes my way. Some days are harder than others, but the journal is the place where a lot of that lives. The key is that I process it. When we don’t process what is going on in life, how can we expect to move on from it in a positive way and make progress? The processing can be conscious or subconscious, but it has to be done. I have found that journaling is a little bit of both for me. I consciously sit down to write about my day, then subconsciously process many things that have contributed to how I am feeling in that moment. I’m not saying my way is the way to go, but I would encourage everybody to journal in their own way. But now, it is the most valuable thing that I do.