Journaling to reach your potential!

Journaling is not just for 12 year old girls! Journaling can be a powerful weapon in your get-it-done arsenal, and it’s easy to do. You can and should put all kinds of things in a goal journal, not just your thoughts and feelings on a given day. 

Journaling is just one way of tracking your actions and successes, and yes, even your setbacks and failures. It also keeps your goal right in front of your face so you keep on top of taking action steps each and every day. It keeps all your ideas and revelations in one place so you can go back and review whenever you want.

For example, if you are having trouble getting motivated one day because you feel like you’ve been working hard, but making little progress, going back into your goal journal is a wonderful way to help you see that all of those little actions really are paying off in a big way. So what should you keep in your goal journal? Start with these ideas and add to them as you see fit.

1. Detailed goal--Write down your exact goal in as much detail as possible. Describe it in a way that makes you feel excited about what your life will be like when you achieve your objective.

2. Your Why--Your Why is the big reason why you want to reach the goal you have defined for yourself. It’s the reason you are willing to take the massive action steps needed to change your life for the better.

3. Massive action plans and schedule--When you make the plan for how you will go about reaching your goal, write it here. Writing it down is important so that you can track your efforts so you can see what actions are creating the most results.

4. Braindumps--A brain dump is just a list of actions that you need to take in no particular order. Sometimes all the tasks you need to take build up in your head, making you confused about where you should start and what you should do next.

5. Prioritize--After you do a brain dump, organize the tasks into a priority list and add them to your daily and weekly to-do lists.

6. Daily to-do list--Write out your to-do lists here so they are always handy.

7. Aha’s--As you make massive action, you will have inspiration or aha moments when something becomes clear. Capture those ideas here so that you can refer to them later when you are ready to put them into action.

8. Journal entries--Yes, you should actually journal. Sometimes there’s nothing better than stream of consciousness writing to help you solve a problem or get your worries off your chest. It’s a therapeutic and inspirational way to work.