An overlooked success secret?

By Paul Piotrowski on May 31, 2006 in Wealth and Finance, Productivity

Let me share with you what I believe to be one of the most overlooked success secrets in the world - Journaling. Journaling?! Yes, journaling, as in writing down your thoughts in a personal journal.

How is journaling a success secret? The importance of journaling is tremendous, but very few people really talk about it because it’s kind of a private part of their life so they like to keep it a secret.

I got started on journaling about 8-9 years ago when I watched a video of some multi-millionaire who made his money in the financial services sector (selling investments, insurance products etc.) and he was doing a speech on stage about building wealth. He came up to the podium as the guest speaker that night and began his talk. Everyone was expecting him to teach them the newest / hottest investment strategy, or some new sales tactics on how to sell clients on investment products but instead he went into this big speech about Journaling! Everyone thought he was crazy but he was totally serious and totally convinced that the absolute most important thing he could teach this massive group of people in the audience that night was to start Journaling.

I have no idea who this person was but I still remember some of the words he spoke that day. He said things like “If your life is worth living, it’s worth recording.” He said “If you live your entire day, from morning to the evening and during that 12-16 hours that you’re awake in that day you haven’t done a SINGLE thing of value, a single important or interesting thing, you haven’t seen or learned anything new or important, you haven’t laughed at a joke or you haven’t said or heard anything neat then and only then you wouldn’t have anything to write in a journal because your life is totally boring. However, if your life is so boring then you should really start writing in your journal about how you’re going to make your life less boring so even then you’ve got something to write.” I thought it was rather humorous.

A few days later I started a small journal where I wrote down my thoughts. I kept it up for a few more days and then stopped writing. I picked up writing in the journal again a while later and then stopped again. This was back in 1998. In the last 7 months I’m averaging 2 full size pages of writing per day in my journal (although I don’t write every day, so the days I do write I write more than 2 pages). I started journaling regularly in about 2000 after I picked up my journal from 1998 and had an “Aha!” moment. Only then did I realize the power in journaling. Once you read a journal of yours from 2 years ago you’ll see what I mean.

Why is journaling so important?

Look around your room or house and think about an item or goal that you now have that you didn’t have lets say a few years ago. For example, let’s say you have a new computer or a new TV or a new girlfriend or whatever. Do you remember when you first wanted that item? Do you know the date? Do you know how long it took you to get that item? Do you know how you described it the first time you wanted it? Has that description changed? Is the item better than you originally wanted or did you “settle” for second best?

These are ALL questions you would be able to answer if you kept a regular journal. Journaling enables you to take a trip to the past and learn about yourself. Journaling allows you to enter your head a year ago, or 2 years ago or 8 years ago and see what kinds of thoughts were running through your head at that time, see what kind of ambitions you had, what kind of fears dominated your mind and what kinds of things were important to you back then.

It is an eye opening experience to say the least. If you started writing in your journal today, and kept writing even as little as once a week, two years from now you would be able to see this journal and read about yourself today.

It is very difficult to describe the benefits of journaling to someone who doesn’t journal, but just imagine if I took all of the photographs of you that exist in the world. I took every picture that was ever taken of you throughout your life from the day you were a baby until now. Your baby pictures, your school pictures, your vacation pictures, perhaps even your wedding pictures. Now lets say that I put all those pictures in a box and was going to light them on fire and burn them and forever they would be lost. How would that make you feel?

Probably not very good, right? Why? Because our pictures are important to us, they document our lives and they give us a glimpse to the past. Well, journaling is exactly like that except you’re capturing THOUGHTS instead of pictures of what you look like on the outside. I feel that my THOUGHTS are just as important as what I look like so if I get pictures taken of me on my birthday and those are important, than I think the thoughts I’m thinking might also be important to capture.

Secondly, journaling can be a very important tool for self-development. Self reflection in a journal can be a lot of fun, it can be very enlightening and it can open up your world to a totally new way of learning.

I’ve had all kinds of problems, frustrations, annoyances in life and turned to my journal for help. I simply pick up my journal and begin writing. I write whatever I feel like writing at that time. If I’m frustrated, I’ll write about that. If I’m excited, I’ll write about that. If I’m angry, I’ll write about that. Whatever I feel like writing, I write. It’s almost like I’m having a conversation with myself, so I write and I ask myself questions like “Ok, what can I do about this?” and I then answer myself. It’s an amazing way to resolve problems in life. It’s a lot more difficult to do this same thing inside your head without writing it down.

I’ve always found that people who try to resolve everything in their heads end up going in loops. They encounter a problem and think about a possible solution, then that solution creates another problem that requires another solution. Then that solution creates yet another problem and by this point the mind is so confused it goes back to the original problem and the cycle begins again. However, if you write this down as you’re figuring it out, you’re much more likely to work through the problem instead of getting mentally fatigued and giving up the train of thought and re-starting all over again.

Here’s ten tips on how to get started on journaling:

1) Go out and buy a NICE journal. In fact, go and buy the nicest journal your budget can afford. A nice journal will give your brain the signal that you are serious about this. Besides, 35 years from now when you go to dust off this journal to read it, do you really want to be reading a piece of crap journal? No, you’d want to be reading something nice. Also, a high-quality journal will last for a LONG time. The paper in a high-quality journal can last for hundreds, even thousands of years if you use a good quality acid-free pen. I’ve spent anywhere from $20-$200 on journals. Find a nice one that fits your budget. Don’t buy a cheapie one. Your thoughts are important. Keep them in a nice journal.

2) Don’t force yourself to write every day. It’s better to try writing “a few times a week” than to try to write every single day. I find that some days I’m just tired, and I have no desire to write anything down so why force myself. Other days I find it very easy to write. Write as much as you can, but don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day, a week or even a month. Just re-start and keep writing as much as you can without feeling guilty about any time you missed.

3) You don’t need to write a chronicle of what happened every day. Sometimes I’ll write about my day but mostly I just write about whatever I feel like writing. There are no rules to journaling in terms of content, just write whatever comes to mind. Here’s some opening lines that you could start with for example which sway away from the traditional “Dear Diary, here is what happened today…”:

“Oh man, what a day. I am sure glad it’s over because…”
“Today I learned something very important from the weirdest person…”
“I’ve finally decided what I want to do with….”
etc.

Anything goes, just write. Be fearless in expressing yourself. It won’t be easy at first but you’ll get better at it.

4) Don’t worry about handwriting. I’m so sloppy with my handwriting but I don’t care. I can read it just fine even years later (I’ve checked) so I really don’t care if anyone else can’t read it. Nobody is supposed to be reading my journals anyways so no worries here. Neatness doesn’t count here unless you want it to count so if you feel like being sloppy, do it. Sometimes thoughts race so fast you just don’t have the time to write slow so don’t feel bad if your writing is messy.

5) Put the date and time at the beginning of every entry. Trust me, you’ll love me later for suggesting this.

6) MAKE SURE your journal stays private. You need to be able to be totally honest with yourself and write in your journal with the assumption that nobody will be reading what’s written there besides you. Take care to make sure that your journals stays private so that you don’t hold anything back while writing. If you’re too afraid to write something down because you have a snoopy room-mate etc., and they won’t respect your privacy perhaps look into a software based system with a password code.

If you live with mature adults they should respect your privacy enough not to read your journal if you explain to them that it’s private.

7) Blogging is not journaling. Although blogging is growing SO fast in today’s world, I don’t find it a substitute for Journaling. I run this blog website but I also Journal personally. Blogging is for sharing with the world, and Journaling is for sharing with your future self.

8) Your entries don’t need to be any specific length. You can have an entry that just says “May 29, 2006 - 3:47pm — It’s so hot today, but it’s nice to see the sun out finally. Ok gotta go.” And that’s fine. Some entries might go on for pages, while others might be very short. Even an entry like “Smile more.” is good enough. Don’t feel pressured to only write when you’ve got something profound to write. Write whenever you have ANYTHING to say.

9) Once you finish a journal, keep it in a safe place. Imagine the value of your journal to you 30 years from now. Don’t be careless with them. Your thoughts right now will be worth a lot to you some day. You will want to “go back in time” some day and see what you used to think.

10) Start today! Go get a journal and start today. There’s no time like the present to get going. Don’t know what to write? I’ll tell you then. Write this: “Today I read this article by some guy named Paul Piotrowski. He talked about starting a journal so here I am starting a journal. We’ll see in a few years if this journaling thing is really as valuable as he says it is. If it is, maybe I’ll have to send him a thank you note for getting me started on this.”

There you go, that could be your first entry!