How to journal your way to success

We all like to win. Whether it’s at work, home, or watching our favorite sports team head to the Super Bowl. Finding success in life gives you permission to live with purpose by discovering your biggest wins and acting on them. Most people view success as financial, but did you ever consider that success comes in all forms, shapes, and sizes?

For years I desired to be a better journaler. I’ve watched successful people I know and admire, write down their thoughts on either a pad of paper or in a nice bound journal. I would dabble, try it for a few weeks, then fail miserably at journaling my day. I even tried using digital versions like Evernote or DayOne Journal. It worked for a while, then I’d fall off the bandwagon. I knew I needed a proven template to help me succeed in this area I desperately wanted to win.

In 1989 a small notebook company in France went out of business. Their sole product, a Moleskine style notebook. A hardcover notebook with a simple strap to hold it closed made its popular arrival in the mid-eighteen hundreds. Journals and notebooks have been used by Picasso, Hemingway, Van Gogh and many others. But when this company went out of business a woman, who grew up around publishing had an idea.

Maria Sebregondi grew up in Italy where her mother worked as an editor and graphic designer. “I remember, when I was a child, having graphics all around.” She told the New Yorker. She had grown up using journals and notebooks to catalog her thoughts. Then she had the idea in 1995 to create Moleskine, and journals took off in a new way, paving the way for many many variations of a simple design from the 1800s.

Journaling has long been a tradition of the most successful people. I look at people like Thomas Edison, Benjamin Franklin or modern people like Michael Hyatt, Jim Rohn, and Tony Robbins. Each of these men keeps journals to help document their wins, frustrations, emotions, and failures.

Entrepreneur Jim Rohn said,

“A life worth living is a life worth recording. Most successful people keep journals and there are many reasons why. A journal not only gives you a place to record your thoughts, but it also allows you to analyze where you are, where you are going and where you have been.”

While successful people utilize journals every day, something I’m getting better at, how you utilize a journal will vary from person to person. This led me on a discovery to create a new journal called, the “Thinking Forward Journal”. This journal is designed utilizing 9 different questions to help you organize your thoughts to catalog your biggest wins and write down what you’re most grateful for so that you can think through your next day and accomplish your goals.

I want to give you a list of reasons why keeping a journal will make you successful and help you win at life and go to the next level. What can a journal do for you?

1. Gives you a place to write your biggest wins.

I opened with we all like to win, whether it’s at work, home, or personally. Using a journal will help you write down your biggest wins and the lessons you’ve learned throughout the day.

We all have at least 3 major things we’ve accomplished in our day that counts as a win. Write that down! It takes just a few minutes to think through your day and discover where it was you saw victory in your life. This also gives you permission to write down some of your lessons learned.

Though we may have to dig deep to discover our wins, finding those lessons learned will help you find your weaknesses and isolate them.

2. Helps you track habits and patterns throughout our week.

One of the main reasons I wanted to write in a daily journal was to take note of what was working or not working in my life. Taking the time each day, or at least on a regular basis, gives you a unique perspective on your life. Over time you’ll begin to notice patterns or habits whether they’re good or bad.

A daily journal gives you the avenue to explore your thoughts and feelings surrounding the events of your life. Yet it is easy to become a protectionist when it comes to journaling. We like to make sure only the good parts of our life are reflected in the notebooks’ pages. While that’s not necessarily bad, it’s good to practice writing both the good and bad habits and patterns we encounter throughout our day.

3. It gives you permission to seek out what you’re most grateful for.

One thing I’ve practiced in my own journaling is writing down what I’m most thankful for. Whether it’s people, circumstances, financial, daily success–I want to make sure I know what drives me to be grateful for in this life.

When you take the time to dive deep into gratefulness, you’ll discover your whole outlook on life becomes better. You’ll also begin to clarify your life and finding a way to see the good in the midst of the bad. We all have something to be grateful for, but taking a moment to write down just 3 things daily will elevate your life to the next level.

4. Will help you track your goals.

There are a ton of successful people who journal on a daily basis. In fact, it’s almost a given that the more successful someone is, it’s a foregone conclusion that they probably journal their goals on a daily basis. It’s a way to keep track of their progress while anticipating their next action steps needed to accomplish those goals.

What are your dreams and goals for the future? It’s a question I ask myself every year. This one question can change your whole life and it’s something I visit every quarter to make sure I’m on track with accomplishing those goals.

Each year, take a day to figure out what goals you want to accomplish. Here’s how:

1. Write your summary using the SMARTER template. Listen to Episode 128 to learn more.
2. Write down your key motivations for each goal. What 3 motivations do you have for writing them?
3. Write down your next big 3 – 5 steps to reaching your goal.
4. Give yourself a reward to celebrate the accomplishment of that goal.

To learn more about writing goals, check out this blog post from 2016.

5. Helps facilitate personal and emotional growth.

One of the things I love about journaling is how it calms the mind and allows me to really dive into what happened in my day. The hardest part about journaling is figuring out what my biggest wins were and what 3 things I’m most grateful. I want to know what I learned about myself during the course of the day.

It’s one thing to write what happened and what my biggest wins were, but writing down what about myself did I learn, can be intimidating. But this helps me discover where I need to keep doing, improve upon, Stop doing, or Start doing to maintain success in my daily life. I want to make sure I’m growing as an individual and taking my life to the next level.

6. A place to write a simple affirmation about myself.

It’s hard for us as humans to write something good and positive about ourselves. Think about the girls who start their diaries. They write about the boy problems, their frustrations with the parents, or whatever happened in their life good or bad. Usually bad.

As leaders, our job is to document what happened in our life, both good and bad, but to also affirm ourselves by thinking positively about our life. This is where writing down an affirmation will take your mindset to a better and healthier place.

When you take the time to write something down, whether it’s a positive quote, bible verse or simply stating something like, “I am a good husband and father, who takes care of the needs of my family and I know my children can always trust and come to me with their problems needs”, you’ll find your whole mindset changes.

7. Take time to develop a daily template.

When I started journaling, I would journal however and whenever I felt. There was no real goal or motivation to how I wrote in my notebooks. This is why I failed. Then I discovered Michael Hyatt. He talked about journaling with purpose. He suggested journaling to a template. That’s what I started doing and create success it worked.

I discovered I was learning more about myself and my day by journaling my wins, losses, affirmations and more. After some time, I discovered a template that worked for me and after talking with several people, they loved my template.

So, I created a new journal that asks 8 simple questions to help me process my day. Each day was broken up into three main categories:

1. Thinking about my day.

• What happened today?
• What were my 3 biggest wins?
• What did I learn about myself?

2. An Attitude of Gratitude.

• What emotions am I feeling?
• What 3 things am I thankful for?
• Write an affirmation.

3. Thinking about tomorrow

• What key follow-ups need my attention?
• What 3-5 things must I accomplish tomorrow to further my goals?

CHECK OUT MY NEW JOURNAL and START THINKING FORWARD!