5 Life Changing Journal Techniques

[Music] 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 five 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 challeng 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 want to talk to you about is highlight journaling and when I think about highlight journaling there was a book that I read and some friends of mine uh 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 was 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 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 going to 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 you know

open-ended uh notebook where you certainly have more room you might find and this is the case 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 Cleon now I don't know Austin but he's one of my favorite writers uh artist somebody that I've followed in this

creative Journey his books show your work steal like an artist uh keep going that little Trilogy of books have been really important to me and he talks about like 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 s sailing the Seven Seas when really all your 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 thinking 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 say 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 okay what are you are you grateful for your health for your family for that you know delicious warm you know 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 cuz then you'll get better like I promise you you will feel better like I'm grateful for this jacket it's my it's my favorite jacket I'm grateful that my friend uh Casey got me this cool dad gang hat for my birthday shout out to Casey I'm grateful that my wife can you know be home with the kids I'm grateful that they can go to the bounce house I'm grateful that I have a gym uh

that's attached to the office or my office is attached to the gy you just start going down the list and and so I do encourage you to like try and find again and 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 three things you can do them individually or you can do them all together and have like you can fill up a page doing that the uh 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 Katherine best self has like some good journaling prompts the best self journal when you're doing that again just keep it simple to start what we're trying to do is build 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 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 two three 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 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 five 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 seen the Harry Potter movies

there are those scenes with Dumbledore I think it's pronounced pen pensivy or pen pensive 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 I think I remember that we went to yosee 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 pen where I can just pull out a memory and that helps me process things much better so self-reflection awareness uh 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 is 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 O surprice you is that journaling really helps me with goal setting and productivity and taking action is 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 and how all those things fit together and how they align go ahead and let me know in the comments which of these five 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