4 Life Changing Journalling Methods

Albert Einstein.

Marcus Aurelius.

Leonardo da Vinci.

All these people kept a journal and many argue that this habit was a great contribution to their success. Journalling allowed them to capture and record their thoughts and ideas and this allowed them to observe what they were thinking — which made it easier for them to express their ideas and also come up with new ones.

Why Should You Journal?

Every year, it’s as if we keep on getting busier and busier. Trying to keep up with school, work, relationships and hobbies amongst other things.

We barely find time alone for ourselves to reflect and we end up with a mind full of thoughts and everything is cluttered together. This leads to confusion, anxiety and overthinking — further worsening the problem.

Journalling is a gateway for your thoughts to become organised. Your brain is not meant to store information — it’s main role is to create.

The Physics of Journalling

Energy can never be created nor destroyed — it can only be transferred from one form to another.

This fundamental physics principle can be applied in the context of journalling. If your thoughts (mind energy) build up and are never released into another form (journalling), the energy will build up and eventually you will not be able to contain it — you might experience depression and burnout.

When you journal this mind energy is transferred onto the paper and your mind has less energy to contain, which means it has to do less work and you feel more at peace.

The benefits I have experienced from incorporating this habit include:

• Better decision making

• Better sleep

• Increased emotional intelligence

• Improved memory

• Increased overall happiness

4 Life Changing Journaling Methods

• In-Depth Journalling

• Gratitude Journalling

• Fear Setting

• Prompted Journalling

In-Depth Journalling

Have you ever been at work and had this one thought in the back of your mind which unsettles you and keeps you from going on with your day?

Most of us have.

The problem is that most of us sleep with this thought in our head without exploring it and trying to find a solution for it.

So the next time you experience this, grab your journal and write down everything which comes to your mind until you have nothing else left to write.

Then analyse what you have written and you will gain a better understanding of what you were thinking. Seeing our thoughts on paper makes it easier for our brain to understand and come up with solutions for the problems we overthink about.

Gratitude Journalling

By now, most of us know that being grateful can have a significant impact on your happiness.

Basically at the end of the day write down three new things which you are grateful for.

The key is to not repeat what you wrote down in the past. Always find new things to be grateful for — your mental health will improve drastically.

You can be grateful about anything, even if it’s something simple like:

• Water

• A new shirt you just bought

• Summer

• Taste

Fear Setting

This method was developed by Tim Ferris and it’s very useful when we need to make certain decisions which we are afraid to make.

Fear setting helps you realise that what you are worried about may not be as scary as you are making it out to be.

A basic template you can use to do this is by drawing three columns with the titles:

• Define Fear — list down your fears and worst case scenarios which can happen

• Prevent — list down ways to prevent these worst case scenarios

• Repair Damage — list down what you will do to repair the damage if your fears actually turn out to be true

Prompted Journalling

In this type of journalling you are basically promted to answer three questions at the end of the day to help you reflect on your day and find out ways to make the following day better than the previous one.

The three questions are:

• What went well for me today?

• What didn’t go so well?

• What can I change to make tomorrow better?

Now that you know all this you have two options — keep overthinking and worrying about the thoughts in your head.

Or analyse them, understand them and work on solving them!