7 Key Reasons to Journal | Robin Sharma

Hi, this is Robin Sharma. Welcome to this mastery session. This mastery session is called the Journaling Deconstruction. These days, I'm so fascinated and all about deconstructing so many of the core pieces of my thinking, my life, my observations. I really want you to think about this word deconstruction. If you run a business, ask yourself, hmm, how can I deconstruct what has made my business successful? If you are a professional athlete. A lot of professional athletes and pro sports stars are watching these mastery sessions. Ask yourself, how can I deconstruct the best performance I've had this year? If you are a teacher, ask yourself, on my best day, in front of my class, let me deconstruct what I did, what I ate, what I thought, how I behaved to deliver that result. The more you can deconstruct things. If you go to a conference and you say, wow, that was fantastic, deconstruct why it was so fantastic because with more clarity, you can do more of it. So I hope I'm making sense. But this idea, I want you to think about deconstructing the things that are working for you and then deconstructing the things that don't work for you. Let's say you gave a presentation at the office to your teammate, you. And it didn't go so well. That's okay. You know, failure is the price of legendary, but you want to learn from it. Okay? A failure is only a failure if you allow it to become a failure versus a leverage point to your next level of world class. And so if the presentation didn't go well, you want to take the time in deep reflection or meditation or journaling to deconstruct what happened so that you can wrap your brain cells around what you want to do next. You know, as these Catalonians will. And we went downstairs into the bodega and we had an epic meal, and the food was magical. And the experience with my Iconx members was unforgettable. And the next morning, I woke up in Barcelona and I wrote about it in my journal, and I wrote about it just to allow the experience to infuse my heart. Not only my mind, but my heart. I wanted to take in what I experienced at that restaurant at a heart level, at an emotional, visceral level. So it became a felt knowing in my body. And yes, I'm passionate about great food. And yes, I'm passionate about that restaurant. I get nothing, of course, by sharing it. But your life is special. Even if you're going through a difficult time by Writing in your journal about the good things in your life, the blessings, the sunsets, the great pizza meals, your favorite restaurants, that wonderful book you just read, that conversation you just had at a bus stop or with the taxi driver. It will allow you to relive the experience. And you can do that anytime you want to relive that experience and feel the same feelings. And if you do that, then you start living life almost like a miracle. Every day becomes this incredible miracle. Number four, the fourth reason to journal, it imprints deliberate gratitude. You see, gratitude is a muscle. I'm going to repeat that again because it's so important. Gratitude is a muscle. The more you go to the gym of celebrating your blessings, the stronger your muscle internally of gratitude will grow. And you might say, robin, you know, you teach leadership to the Fortune 500, you teach elite performance to professional athletes and professional sports, for example. Why are you talking about gratitude? Well, if you look at the work of a lot of the storied and most celebrated positive psychologists, they will use a term called deliberate gratitude. And what they found is the happiest people are the people who make the time to deliberately celebrate gratitude. And happy people get big things done. Happy people are the most creative. Happy people are the least toxic. Happy people are the best entrepreneurs or team leaders within organizations. Happy people have the most fire in their belly. Happy people have the most grit, which is that trait. You know, Angela Lee Duckworth's term about that trait of people who get the most things done. So my point is, in your journaling, if every day.

You take the time to record 10 things that are great about my life, 10 things that I'd love to focus on, you know, could be I have two legs. If you're blessed to have two legs, it could be you have good eyesight in a world where a lot of people have glaucoma. It could be that you have income. In a world where a large percentage of the world is existing on $2 a day, if you have food in your belly, you are a blessed human being. If you have roof under your head, you are a very fortunate person indeed. And so the psychological term is called hedonic adaptation. You know, you get a new car and you love the new car until it becomes your new normal. You buy a new house or you have a roof over your head. If you were homeless and you take it for granted, that's hedonic adaptation. It's a survival instinct that we have to fight. And how do you fight? Fight taking things for granted. Hedonic adaptation, the reply or the way you fight it is deliberate gratitude.

I am writing almost every day in my journal about what I'm grateful for. My loved ones. I have an extraordinary family who I adore. I am blessed to do these podcasts. I'm blessed to do these mastery sessions, to be of service to so many people. I am blessed to be an influencer on Facebook, where millions of people are going to my Facebook page every single day. I am blessed to have great health. I am blessed to do work I love. I am blessed to be able to eat food that makes me happy. I am blessed to have a home full of books. I mean a home full of great learning materials and a home that inspires you is a beautiful home, even if it's a one bedroom apartment or hut. You know, there's an image I saw the other day, these African school children and they're reading under street lights. You know, they don't have any electricity in their homes, so they coalesce and congregate every evening under public streetlights on the street so they all can read. That's how much they want to learn. And that moves me even sharing it with you here today. And you are probably in a place where you have electricity in your home and you can read every night. Do you take the time to celebrate it? Journaling is a great way to dial in and acutely focus on those blessings. And just imagine if you took those things and really viscerally appreciated them. They would be so meaningful to you and you would feel so different. Even if you're going through a disappointing time in your life. The fifth reason in this journaling deconstruction is to process through and release low energy emotions. So if you're going through one of life's inevitable hard times, I mean, we all. Life is a series of seasons, okay? And you're going to have times at the top of the mountain, you're going to have times in the valley. I've gone through times you could not imagine. You know, I've gone through times where I have been attacked, where people have tried to take me down, where someone very close to me called it a horror story, like a Hollywood horror story.

And I have pivoted during those times and used them as much as I humanly could do so to open my heart, to teach me forgiveness, to teach me faith, to teach me love, to understand that my enemies, and I don't have any enemies, but those people who tried to hurt me and destroy me were also helping me become a deeper, stronger, faster human being who was even More of service to you. And it makes me think of that wonderful Mexican proverb. They tried to bury me. They didn't understand. We were seeds. And during my times in the darkness, where I was lost and hurting, where people were trying to destroy me, one of the things that saved me was my journal. Some days I would write for hours and I would process the pain and I would process the disappointment and I would write about my confusion. You see, here's the key. Any great psychologist will tell you and any great philosopher will tell you, if you do not feel through and release the pain and the disappointment and the anger towards forgiveness and freedom and love, you will repress and suppress those low energy emotions. And if you do, you'll be a toxic person. If you do, you'll be bitter 10 years later. If you do, you will never forgive. If you do, you will be carrying those people who tried to destroy you with you through the rest of your life. You won't be creative, you won't be productive, you won't be on fire, you won't be a master of your craft because you're stuck in the event that happened years ago. And journaling is a fantastic tool to move you through those difficult times, whether they last a week, whether they last five years, whether they last a decade. Hey, Nelson Mandela was in Robben island for 27 years. You want to talk about a hero? Sixth reason to keep a journal. Exponential learning sustainability. What does that mean, exponential learning, sustainability. Well, by writing what you've learned in your journal, you dramatically accelerate the learning and the stickiness and sustainability of what you've learned. So if you've just been to a great conference, you've just been through a great online course, you've just read a great book, or let's say you've just had a great conversation with your mentor or a stranger over lunch, over a cup of tea before you go to sleep, pull out your journal and write about it. Here's what I learned. Here are the seven points. Here are the 15 points. And dial it in and calibrate the insights. Why? It'll deepen them in your thinking. It'll lock them in. And then as you know, it's your beliefs that drive your behavior.

Your income and your impact always reflects your self identity. And so through learning and integrating the learning, so you become this force of nature and this more valuable human being. Then you will be able to bring on the value to your marketplace, bring on the service, bring on the passion, bring on the energy, bring on the excellence so that you become unstoppable as you rock your craft, your market of choice. And that brings me. I hope you've loved this mastery session. I'm full of passion and energy, obviously. I love journaling and I really want you to do it, just to experience it so that you get the benefits in your own life. Which is my great wish for you. And the seventh reason to journal in this deconstruction I've walked you through with great love is it allows you to record your remarkable life. You know, there are no extra people on the planet today. It doesn't matter if you're a billionaire, a street sweeper, a chef, a filmmaker, a carpenter, a laborer, an astronaut, a scientist. You are built for remarkability.

And your life is colorful. Your life is meant to be rich. It's meant to be beautiful. The hard times will serve you. I mean the hard times. Those times of pain and frustration build your character. They open you up. They deepen you. They might. They give texture and beauty and deliciousness to your life if you see them and embrace them that way. And then your times at the top of the mountain, savor those. They're glorious times that are meant for you. But write it all down. You know, it's writing your journals. That's your autobiography. And I hope you get to the end of your life and maybe you're 127 years old and you look at this heap of journals and you go back through them and you read about your learnings, you read about your lessons, you read about what you gave. You read about your trials, you read about your victories. You read about who you influenced, the people you loved, the people you inspired, your times of confusion. And a smile comes to your face because you realize you lived life beautifully and meaningfully. And I really, really, really hope on the last hour of your last day, as you flip through your journals, surrounded by those who love you, that's what comes to your mind and within your heart. Thanks so much for being with me. Hi, this is Robin Sharma. I hope you received great value from this Mastery session. If you'd like to receive potent training videos, blog posts, learning tools and information on my two live events, Personal Mastery Academy and my flagship four day experience, the Titan Summit, go ahead and visit robinsharma.com.