#46 - My Journaling Process

What I’m Watching

The Last of Us is an ongoing series on HBO, which is adapted from a game. I’d say it’s one of the best adaptations I’ve seen. It’s got a 9.2 currently on IMDB! Worth a watch.

Resource of the week

I’ve just signed up to NordVPN after some research. There are pros and cons to using a VPN but I decided to use it primarily because it can encrypt your traffic so no one can see what you’re accessing online, including your own internet service provider, so it can bypass their filters. Also, a nifty feature is the ability to connect to servers in various countries around the world so you can watch location-restricted shows for example.

If you sign up using this link we both get a few months free.

Quote

"Raise your ambitions. Lower your expectations. The higher your ambitions, the bolder your actions. The lower your expectations, the greater your satisfaction. Achieve more and be happy along the way."

James Clear

Thoughts

I’ve been journaling on and off for many years now and decided to take it more seriously last September. It has given me so much clarity and insight that I’ve decided to make it as part of my routine. The funny thing is, even though I journal a lot, when my brother asked me what I actually write, I wasn’t actually too sure.

So now that I’ve had a minute to think about it, I wanted to share my process. I know there are a multitude of ways people journal. It’s a highly personal thing so feel free to take and discard what doesn’t work for you. I haven’t really looked into the various methods and techniques out there. To me, it was always almost a form of therapy. So it’s evolved naturally into what it is now over the years.

It started as a stream-of-consciousness thing. I would just write whatever was on my mind at that moment, with no conscious thought or effort. Just to get things down on paper.
Writing down key things I did that day. Sometimes they might seem mundane but over weeks and months sometimes I see patterns cropping up.
How I’m feeling. I’ve recently realised that when I was younger I was always quite bad at understanding how I felt or my emotions towards certain things. I would do things and make decisions based on what I thought ‘should’ make me happy and because I didn’t understand my own emotions that well, I would get frustrated and keep doing those same things. It was a self-sabotaging cycle. I’ve since worked a lot on it. According to Daniel Goleman in Emotional Intelligence, understanding our own emotions is the first step to being in tune with other people’s emotions and feelings which has uses in all walks of life.
Developing my own principles. This one is stolen from Ray Dalio. He likes to create a set of rules based on our core values in terms of decision-making so we approach life in a consistent way and live true to ourselves. For me, it doesn’t have to be politically correct or approved by most people in society. I’m not doing it to virtue signal, it’s what resonates with me. As long as it’s what you believe in. So when something doesn’t go to plan in life, I like to dissect it and use the experience to develop a principle. So if a similar event happens that falls in the same category I won’t have to risk making a decision on the spot when I’m fatigued, or annoyed etc. I can draw back on my principles that I’ve carefully thought through and noted down. Ray Dalio aruges that while a lot happens to us in life, they fall into a number of finite categories and recognising something as ‘one of those’ is hugely powerful.
Writing a morning startup list for the next day. I have a whole Notion system for my tasks, goals, projects etc. Even so, my mornings can sometimes feel a bit sluggish to get going. I find that the night before if I write 1 to 3 very specific things to do first thing in the morning I can get right to it and get a few things ticked off. So I have some early wins, which sets me up for the rest of the day.
Telling myself what to focus my thoughts on. The book Richer, Wiser, Happier, describes Sir John Templeton (a legendary billionaire fund manager) as someone who was "so disciplined that a single unproductive thought was unwelcome in his mind. He once told me that when he detected an unproductive thought, he would seize it and banish it to the nothing from which it came.” I’m not saying that I’m aiming for that level of extremity, but there are days when I probably spend too much time thinking about useless things like why I didn’t invest in x years ago, or past mistakes, or worrying about the future or things/people that annoyed me, or random arguments in my head. In these situations I take a leaf out of Sir Templeton's book and just sit down and focus on the tasks ahead or planning.
Writing out quotes. I have a lot of quotes I like, saved up over the years. The chances of coming across the most relevant one when you need it most by chance are very slim. So this process is my time to review them and keep it front of mind to use the most helpful quote at that point in my life to remind myself to stay grounded.

Hans