5 Essential Components Of A Successful Journaling Routine.
You can see the progress, only if you measure it. Journaling is a great tool to do that and a very important piece in the creation of a new habit.
If you have come to the point where you feel an urge to change your habits to become healthier, then these changes might be challenging sometimes and there will be moments when you ́ll feel you are not progressing or even failing.
If you keep a daily journal habit, it might save you in these particularly hard moments. Basically you will see where you have been a while ago and see the difference.
The list of successful, wise and brilliant people who made time to journal is almost unbelievable: Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, Marcus Aurelius, John Quincy Adams, Anne Frank, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Virginia Woolf, Henry David Thoreau, Joan Didion. And those are just the people we know about, who talked about it, who didn’t ask that their journals be burned upon their death.
“Blessed is he who keeps daily diary and compares the work of this week with that of the last, for he will realize God quickly!”
― Sivananda Saraswati, Sure Ways For Success In Life And God Realization
But of course, there is often a big difference between doing something and doing something well.
If you’ve struggled to journal, or had trouble seeing much in the way of results, don’t worry. It’s a habit that many have trouble getting to stick. The following tips and best practices should help.
SET A TIME.
Probably the best two moments to journal are in the mornings or evenings. In the morning it will help you to set an intention for the day, a positive tone, get motivated. In the evening it will be more about a reflection and description of the day.
As you are creating and implementing new habits to become a healthier version of you, it is great to do both - mornings and evenings at least for a week to see what works for you best and then stick to your version.
MAKE TIME.
Let's be clear here. You don't have to write a book. It has to be easy and actionable, so even 10 mins is great.
Tony Robbins once said, describing his morning routine, that there was no excuse for him not to find ten minutes each morning to meditate and prepare himself for the day ahead. “If you don’t have 10 minutes, you don’t have a life,” was how he put it.
The issue is not whether you have time or not to journal, it’s whether you are willing to make time for journaling. Is there anything more important than taking time each day to clearly define what you want to accomplish, how you want to act, clear your mind and prepare yourself for the day ahead?
HAVE EASY THINGS TO PUT IN EACH ENTRY.
Some days you will feel like you want to pour all your emotions into your notebook and some days you will feel blank. That is normal.
Just don ́t break the chain if you don't feel inspired. Instead keep a few essential questions always as a backup to answer every day:
How is my energy level?
How was my sleep? How many hours - from when to when?
How does my digestion feel in relation to meals I ate yesterday - today?
What is on my mind these days mostly?
What is the 1 thing I am grateful for?
GRATITUDE AND A POSITIVE TWIST.
There are certainly days when we get up grumpy, unmotivated, in pain or just upset. That's life and it is ok to feel like that.
What is hard, is to go through the day in this state and usually everything falls apart…
Journaling might be a day saver here. Try to include every day a simple gratitude note - just one thing you are grateful for and it will change the filter your mind is using to process the world. If you cannot come up with anything positive (there are certainly days like that), then take a bad thing that happened to you and give it a positive twist - there is something good in every bad situation.
Check this Jocko´s video for inspiration.
PUT A DATE ON IT.
Start every entry with a date. It sounds obvious, but sometimes we might forget and it is actually the most important feature to be able to measure your progress.
There is definitely something magical in revisiting your journal from a year ago and feeling you accomplished so much.
The great news about journaling is, there is no wrong way to do it. Just do it.
The only thing that matters is continuity.
So grab an empty notebook, or just open a new folder in Evernote, Google Docs or whatever works for you best and start.