It’s incredible how much your life can change from a single decision or habit.

For me that habit was journalling, and I’ve been journalling for the last 5 years.

From being lost, confused and broke to living a life of meaning and building my own business, I credit all the significant changes in my life to journalling.

And in this newsletter, I want to tell you why journalling is such a powerful habit that can change your life like it did mine.

Even Roman Emperors Journalled

Journalling isn’t anything new.

It’s an old practice.

One of the most well-known people we have reference to is Marcus Aurelius.

An ancient Roman emperor who we still talk about today.

Meditations is a series of personal writings or journal entries from Marcus Aurelius. It’s a popular read for those interested in Stoicism and philosophy.

And though it offers wisdom that is helpful to us now, it shows how most of us are no different from an emperor.

Marcus Aurelius had fears, experiences and worries. And to process them, he journaled.

In his book, there is a beautiful quote he writes:

So how do you improve the quality of your thoughts and thus increase the happiness in your life?

Thoughts Loops and Journalling

A thought loop is the experience of getting stuck in a chain of repetitive thoughts. It can be the same thought that repeats over and over or a line of similar thoughts that loop around together.

Thought loops are mental traps that you fall into every day.

Every thought you have has the potential to become a thought loop.

• If someone cut you off in traffic, you might still be thinking about that incident by the time you leave the office.

• You might be thinking about the thing you need to do later in the week.

• Or you could be thinking about something a close friend said last week.

The more thought loops you have, the more of your mental energy is consumed.

And unless you close those loops, they will continue to consume your mental energy and space.

And what makes this even more detrimental is when these thought loops are negative.

The mind keeps running these thought loops to figure out what caused it in the first place and how to solve it. But every thought, especially one you are looping over and over, is linked to an emotion.

So if the mind is constantly running the loop over and over, it’s also triggering more emotions. And with more emotions, you get more thoughts and with more thoughts, you get more emotions. The cycle doesn’t end.

This is also what leads to restless nights and fatigue you can’t explain.

• Lashing out at people.

• Feeling down without a clear reason why.

And in long-term cases of these loops,

• Physical pains and illnesses.

• Personality changes.

And this is where journalling is a powerful tool.

By writing things down, you are shifting the focus of your mind.

The act of writing something down forces your mind to slow down and focus on it.

By physically writing down, our eyes are focused on it. And being visual creatures, what we look at for a long time with focus draws our attention to it.

This shift in focus from our thoughts to our hands and the page gets us out of our heads and helps close the loops.

Journalling won’t close all the loops you experience.

But it allows you to start somewhere and not keep everything in your head.

With journalling, you can break things down into small chunks to address, tackle and work on.

A cluttered mind makes for a cluttered life. A clear mind makes for a peaceful life.

How To Journal

There are 3 ways you can journal depending on what outcome you want.

1. Personal growth and well-being

2. Creativity

3. Performance

Personal growth and well-being

Everything you want to achieve externally begins with the internal, with you.

It would be a shame to limit your potential, growth and dreams because your mind isn’t aligned with what you want.

The way you organise and process your mind and emotions will impact everything you do: your actions, your decisions, your progress, your communication and ultimately your life.

• To journal for your personal growth and well-being, you want to write your thoughts, emotions and reflections out without judgment or criticism.

• You’re writing to get things out on the page and once they are out on the page, you can analyse and process them more objectively.

• As you get better at getting things out, it’s easier to address them.

• You can look for different perspectives or simply release whatever it is that was within you onto the page.

• Instead of relying on your mind to figure things out, learn to write them down.

Creativity

Whether it’s an idea or something that caught your attention — write it down.

By writing it down on paper, you are saving up your mind’s space for other things, organising the space and giving yourself the space to develop the idea or thought further if you choose to.

As an entrepreneur or creator (or aspiring for either), your ideas and inspirations don’t come from nothing and develop into the ultimate dream project.

They come from a single idea that you have played with and developed over time. But if you don’t write down that idea, you might be throwing away some of your best ideas.

Ideas not captured are ideas lost.

Whether digital or analogue, you want to have a system for recording your ideas.

I use the Notes app on my phone and laptop and a physical journal.

Performance

Journalling for performance can help in two ways: tracking and clearing.

1. Tracking

You can have a journal that you section into 3 parts:

1. A daily section to track your day and reflect on your progress.

2. A weekly section to reflect on what you did and didn’t do and how you can improve.

3. A monthly section to keep track of your goals and your progress towards those goals.

2. Clearing

The clearer your mind is the better your productivity and performance.

My favourite way to clear my mind is brain dumping.

The more things you think about, the more energy leaks you have, the less productive you are and the more stress you’ll experience. (thought loops).

Even if you aren’t consciously aware of something, you could be unconsciously stressed and emotional because that thing is in your subconscious.

There are two ways to brain dump.

1. During the day

   • For daytime dumping, you want to have a piece of paper next to you where you can write things that pop into your head that don’t relate to the task at hand.

   • Then when you take a break or at the end of the day, you can address those things.

2. Before bed.

   • Just like in personal growth and well-being, everything external begins internally. Your performance is affected by your internal.

   • So before bed, you want to dump everything that has happened in the day, what you’re thinking or feeling onto the page.

   • You’re emptying your mind and with this emptiness, you have greater clarity and energy that allows you to have greater output.

Journal to Your Strengths

• You can journal using a pen and a physical journal.

• You can use a digital journal or digital note-taking app.

• You can use voice memos and speak to yourself.

• You can speak to a camera and create video journals.

You’ll never know what works for you unless you try and experiment.

I use all these in different ways and all give me a clearer, focused mind.

Key Tips

• If you want to start journalling, start with 10 minutes a day. There is a compounding effect to journalling that will free you more and more even with such a small time investment.

• Allow yourself to write and get it out without editing or filtering yourself. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you want to embrace the process and go with the flow.

• Start with one outcome that you want to optimise for.

• Commit to that practice for at least 30 days before using another journaling method.

• Remember to have fun with this process.

Happy journalling

— Shana