I picked up writing in a habit journal every morning about a year ago. Since then, I have tried a couple different formats. There are some people who believe that writing into a habit journal everyday does nothing, but I have actually found it helpful. It is not the end all be all cure, but it definitely helps. The main purpose, at least for me, is to collect my thoughts and have my day already planned. With specific blocks of time during that day set aside for a specific task, I find it rather easy to actually work on the things I need to. I have also found it easier to prioritize this way.
Previous format
Some of the sections I made in previous formats for my journaling are getting rid of the affirmation and what went well about your day. I go into this previous format in more depth in my post, “Daily Journaling and how it has helped me” that is linked at the bottom of this post.
My previous format consisted of writing down my long-term 10X life goals, the goals I had for the day, and a phrase or quote that resonated with me. All of this was restricted to one page in a composition notebook. This was not too bad since I have about 10 of the 10x life goals, and the quote took up 6 lines, so I had enough room for 4 to 5 goals for the day.
What didn’t work about old habit journal
I stopped writing down the quote every day because I did not think it really helped me much. Stuff like that just doesn’t really motivate me much and didn’t make a difference in my day-to-day life. I also stopped writing twice a day: after I woke up and before I went to bed. I would have to force myself to sit down and write the second half of my entry in the habit journal at the end of the day. Writing again at night like this just didn’t mesh well with my daily schedule.
To set a priority to thrive and maintain a healthy relationship, I set aside time to spend with my girlfriend at the end of every day, about an hour. It doesn’t matter what I am doing, if it’s homework or some type of lab, at 8pm every night, I make it a point to stop and spend time with her. Note, this is focused time, I am not just sitting near her while working on stuff, I am actively playing a game(video or card), having a deep conversation, or something similar. The point is this is active interaction, so taking some time from that to write about what made my day a good one seemed counter-productive, since that is one of the biggest reasons, I would dub a day as a good one.
What I am trying now in the habit journal
Now, not much has changed. I still do the 10X goals that I read about in Grant Cardone’s book, The 10X rule. Basically, I quantified a long-term goal that was based on my principles as well as large and difficult, then I multiplied it by 10. I write this list of goals at the top of every entry, every day.
This is your destination on your road map. These goals are something to always work towards. I say that because every time I come close to a goal, I tend to have another one in mind that is even more difficult. I believe this is due to perspective. When I first started this blog, I thought writing 50 posts would be a huge number. Well, this is the 23rd post I have written so far, and now 50 doesn’t seem like much, so I am thinking about upping my goal to 100.
That is just one example, I do the same thing with my training. A year ago, I thought bench pressing 225 pounds was a lot, but at the moment I can bench 275, so the new goal is 315. And by the way, this is at a lighter bodyweight.
CORE 4
Anyways, instead of just writing down some goals I have for the day every morning, I essentially started actually planning my day as soon as I get up. I do that by following the CORE 4 that I outlined in a previous post where I talk about the concepts describe in Sean Whalen’s book How to Make Sh*t happen(linked below).
In a nutshell, I have found that the CORE 4 method is extremely helpful in actually implementing my goals and planning my day. Where the 10X goals are the roadmap for your life, the CORE 4 is the roadmap for your day. If you want to be technical, the CORE 4 actually is great for individual days and anything long-term. I just explicitly go through the constituents (power, passion, purpose, and production) on a day-by-day basis such that I will be closer to my life goals having completed my CORE 4 of the day. However, the CORE 4 connects to the 10X life goals and in essence, are one in the same, just explained from different perspectives.
How the habit journal is going so far
All in all, it is going pretty well. I am able to write the whole entry in the habit journal in about 5 minutes as my breakfast cooks. Due to how the CORE 4 method works, I essentially plan my entire day so that I know what I need to do in order to work towards improving my life in every aspect, according to the value structure I have created for myself, every day.
It is also very easy. For each section of the CORE 4, I basically just create a bulleted list and some of the points that I try to do every day, like text my significant other something that will make their day, I have them in my phone calendar to remind me at specific times.
Conclusions
Writing daily into a habit journal may not be for everyone. Some people might just not need it, others it might make a significant difference. However, it is still something that is worth an honest try. Do it consistently for a few months, and if it isn’t working, change the format that you are using or the topics you are writing. For example, I noticed that writing affirmations every morning did not really do anything for my, so I stopped and modified my format.
This is more or less the theme of personal development. Try new things, give them an honest try, and always try to improve them. That is one thing I have noticed when I started to become obsessed with personal development in college, the more I focused on improving myself, the better I performed in other aspects of my life. When I used my morning for myself and my personal development, I didn’t need to spend so much time studying, and I actually got better grades. My performance during workouts started improving and my body started to change rapidly.
By focusing on improving who I was as a person and becoming very honest with myself about what I value, I became more efficient in every other aspect of my life. Yet another example of how Always Learning and Improving has changed my life for the better.
To your wealth and future,
James Forsythe
For more personal development
https://jamesdforsythe.com/category/personaldevelopment/
The below link is to a YouTube video connecting habit journaling to stoicism and talking about Marcus Aurelius. The video is made by Ryan Holiday, who you should definitely look into if you are interested in stoicism as well.
