5 Life Changing Journal Techniques

For the past 20 years, there are only two habits that I've stuck with: working out and journaling. But you're not here for workout advice. You're interested in how to build a journaling habit. By the end of this video, you'll know 5 practical journaling methods that you can start using today to improve your self-awareness, reduce stress, and boost your creativity. Whether you're new to journaling or looking to refresh your practice, these techniques will help you overcome the challenge of getting started, then help you build and maintain a consistent journaling habit. So grab a notebook and pen and let's dive into the world of journaling. The first one that I wanna talk to you about is highlight journaling. And when I think about highlight journaling, there is a book that I read and some friends of mine wrote a book called Make Time, and one of the things that they talked about was this concept of a highlight of the day. And it really just is like one sentence, one thing that was the highlight for you. Now that could be something that you're looking forward to or something that you enjoyed after the fact, but it's something where you're just looking at and saying like, hey, this was a big highlight for me today. You can also think of it like the one line a day. My friend Sean Blanc talks about that, and I've seen James Clear talk about it as well. It's just something to get you started, like what is one thing you enjoyed or appreciated? And we're gonna talk about gratitude journaling as well. That is something that will at least get you started, and you might find, especially if you're doing this in a more like open-ended notebook where you certainly have more room, you might find, and this is the case where like if you start small and just do the highlight, you might find that there are other things that you can talk about, other things that you're excited to share in your journal as well. But just starting with the highlight, just starting with one sentence. The second journaling method is the daily log. And I first heard about this from Austin Kleon. Now I don't know Austin, but he's one of my favorite writers. Artist, somebody that I've followed in this creative journey. His books Show Your Work, Steal Like an Artist, Keep Going, that little trilogy of books have been really important to me. And he talks about creating a daily log. Now Austin is a cool kind of like cartoonist artist as well. And so when you see his daily log entries, there's like little stick figures and cool art in there. He also does this thing called blackout poetry. So he does a lot of cool stuff in his Daily Log Journal. But the essence of it that I want you to take away from this, and what I've taken away from it, is like, hey, the daily log is just like the daily log. He likens it to like the old ship's log, the old captain's log, when you're, you know, sailing the seven seas. When really all you're doing is you're not like trying to say like, ah, this is how I felt, or this was my highlight, or this is like— you're not trying to like take anything existential out of it. You're just saying about like, hey, I got to work, I got to work at 9:00, I recorded a video, I did a workout, I met my brother Mark for a beer. And maybe like just because I enjoy doodling, I might have some little doodles in there, but like I'm literally just logging. And again, there's a similar thought here, like with the highlight or the one-sentence journal entry. If you just get started, then you will probably find, I can almost guarantee that you'll discover you have more to than just logging what happened during the day. The third journaling method that I want you to try is gratitude journaling, and it's as simple as it sounds. I hope you're picking up on a theme here that everything I'm talking about, I want it to be something really simple for you to start, and gratitude journaling is the same way. What are you grateful for? One of the things that you can take away from this is don't overthink or try and be too grandiose or existential when you're building your journaling habit. Habit. Okay, what are you— are you grateful for your health, for your family, for that delicious warm mug of coffee that you have in the morning? I know I'm always grateful for that. And just trying to find something maybe a little new, a little unique, but still like simple and small, because then you'll get better. Like, I promise you, you will feel better. Like, I'm grateful for this jacket. It's my favorite jacket. I'm grateful that My friend Casey got me this cool dad gang hat for my birthday. Shout out to Casey. I'm grateful that my wife can be home with the kids. I'm grateful that they can go to the bounce house. I'm grateful that I have a gym that's attached to the office, or my office is attached to the gym. You just start going down the list. And so I do encourage you to like try and find again small things, but some like new unique thing every day., and it can just be something that like stands out to you. So that's a part of gratitude journaling. You can make it in a list. And I also want to mention that you can, you can kind of like do all these things together. Like what was a few things that you could do for your journal? Say like, hey, what was my highlight for the day? What were some things that I did? And then what am I grateful for? Those 3 things, you can do them individually or you can do them all together and have it like you can fill up a page. Doing that. The fourth is prompt journaling, and this is something that is— I actually have like a 30-day series of journaling prompts, so you can sign up for that in the description below. They'll come to you first thing in the morning for 30 days, and you'll have some prompts. And what I like about prompt journaling is that it's really just like answering a question. You don't necessarily have to do the hard work of thinking of something to journal about. It's just like, hey, what's a book that you enjoyed this year? What's your favorite movie or TV show? What's your favorite character? Just things like that. You're really just like answering questions. So instead of trying to think of something, you're just, you're just answering a question that's asked you. That's what prompt journaling is. Even when you're receiving these prompts, whether it's from me or something like my friend Catherine, Best Self, has like some good journaling prompts in the Best Self Journal. When you're doing that, again, just keep it simple to start. What we're trying to do is build the muscle. If you don't naturally think of these things right away, don't worry about it. Just answer simply, answer quickly. And I guarantee that as you're doing this, just like if you're exercising, maybe you can't do 100 push-ups in a single session, but can you do a handful? Keep it simple, keep it short, and build your muscle, build your memory, build your creativity. The fifth and final journaling method— there are lots of journaling methods, but probably this is one of the most popular— is morning pages. It was popularized by Julia Cameron. She wrote a book called The Artist's Way, and in this book she talks about her morning pages journaling. With morning pages, she challenges her readers, her students, to journal really just stream of consciousness writing. This doesn't click with a lot of people because it feels silly that you literally are just supposed to write down what you're thinking. That's the point. You're doing a literal brain dump. So even if you're writing down in your journal 2-3 pages, maybe use a small pocket notebook, you can kind of cheat that way. That's what I do. Uh, even if you're just writing down, this is dumb, this is dumb, this is dumb, I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say, I have nothing to say, That's the practice, man. That's it. That's what you're working on. So when you do Morning Pages, again, like, I hope you see the recurring theme here. If you get started and if you're willing to do it in a way that doesn't feel impressive to you, because this is your journal, you're not trying to impress anyone. If you do it in a way that feels simple and maybe like too simple, too silly, there will be good things that come out of it. You will get to a point, probably much faster than you think, where you're sharing and communicating in an even clearer and more insightful way, even just to yourself, than you thought was possible. So those are the 5 methods of journaling that I recommend: highlight journaling, daily log, gratitude journaling, prompt journaling, and morning pages. So what are the benefits of journaling? Why should you commit time to this practice? What does it matter if you write down your thoughts or like, "Had a delicious cup of coffee today, hashtag grateful." You don't have to put hashtags on your journal. They're not searchable that way. The two things that have been most important to me are self-awareness and reflection. The more that I engage with myself through journaling, the better I come to understand who I am, what I'm struggling with. And it's like, if you've seen the Harry Potter movies, there are those scenes with Dumbledore. I think it's pronounced Pensieve or Pensieve, I don't know, but it's that scene where Dumbledore is pulling a memory out of his head. He puts it in there, you can see it. That's kind of like what journaling is. I mean, honestly, that's how I feel, is that I can take my memories, I can take what I'm dealing with, and I can put it on the page here. This is from 13 years ago. This is a 2011 journal. I don't really remember a lot of these things, but I do because I wrote it down. Like, I remember that we went to Yosemite. That was dope. But yeah, I remember that we did a mission trip in Haiti, but I don't remember some of these moments. The log of the day. What was the highlight? It's like having that Pensieve where I can just pull out a memory. And that helps me process things much better. So self-reflection, awareness, less stress, because it really does feel like as I write on the page, my stress level, my concern goes down. Because I'm just— it's like I'm pulling it out of myself and setting it literally on the page, but kind of like on the table. And it's something that I don't have to deal with, but in a good way. It's something that I've processed, not something that I've pushed aside. Another reason that will probably come in as a surprise to you is that journaling really helps me with goal setting and productivity and taking action. Because in the process of writing things down, I can start to make other connections, and it helps me really understand. And this is especially important when it comes to some of the lessons of the Bullet Journal method. It helps me stay really aligned with my why and the vision that I have for my life. It helps me stay intentional with the things that I'm doing, because if I'm going through a day or a week where maybe things feel like a struggle, or I'm not getting the things done that I need to, when I'm journaling about these things versus just making a to-do list, it really challenges me to ask the question of myself, why am I not doing this thing that I said was important for me to do? So it helps me with being intentional, staying true to my goals, to my why, to the vision that I have in my life. And because of that, it helps me be more productive, it helps lower my stress, it helps me be clearer about the work that I'm doing, why I'm doing it, and how all those things fit together and how they align. Go ahead and let me know in the comments which of these 5 journaling methods you are going to try first. Start simple, don't overthink it, and if you want to get 30 days of journaling prompts, just sign up to the link in the description below. Thanks for watching. Bye.