How to Journal to Become Unrecognisable in 3 Months

it's sometimes easy to feel like journaling is really hard to stick with and overwhelming but actually all you need is just 1 minute per day to start transforming your life journaling is such a powerful mental and spiritual tool to transform your life by helping you to heal helping you to grow helping you to make progress helping you to achieve your dream life one question I get asked a lot is how to journal I don't even know where to begin with journaling or I can't stay consistent with journaling all you need to start changing your life are a few simple evidence-based try and tested techniques so in this video we're going to be answering all of those questions starting with why you should journal and how journaling can actually genuinely change your life this is not just some kind of clickbait intriguing title this genuinely will change your life if you put it into practice secondly we'll go over key journaling methods which are evidence-based tried and tested super powerful journaling methods that I've used personally over the years as well and thirdly we'll go over how to stay consistent and build it into your routine to actually take action on wanting to journal and make this a reality for you so without further Ado let's dive into the video if you're new here my name is Izzy I'm a Cambridge graduate and a doctor and I've personally been journaling for over 8 years now and gone through literally dozens of journals I've created a journaling template with a bunch of structures and prompts down below totally free for you to use as a companion for this video so why should we journal and how is this actually going to be life-changing there are three reasons to journal the first first reason is to record your memories as a kind of snapshot to see the progress and see how far you've come when I look back at some of my old journals I'm like oh my goodness I can't believe that at that time I was so worried about something that was happening or I felt so strongly about it but then looking back actually that was such a blessing and that gives you this magical zoom out button on seeing things in perspective secondly it affects your affect so whether you have a more positive or negative approach to the the world basically all of us struggle with negative emotions at times things like fear things like anxiety feeling like you're worrying about the future fear of failure fear of judgment worrying that you're not good enough all of these things can weigh on us on a daily basis Holocaust Survivor and psychologist Victor Frankle who wrote maner for meaning once wrote between stimulus and response there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response in our response lies our growth and our freedom by putting down our thoughts and feelings on paper over and over again journaling is one of the most powerful ways for us to understand more objectively where our thoughts and feelings are coming from and understanding the truth of actually what's been going on in our lives there have been studies on students that show that journaling as a practice can reduce negative emotions and also even boost their grades bizarrely overall it helps you to realize that your emotions and feelings are not actually directly caused by the situation in your life it's also space where you can cultivate a higher state of mind and a more positive outlook on life in this way journaling can literally change our lived experience of the world because experience is not an objective thing experience is the life situation that we're in plus a subjective assessment by us about that situation and that creates our experience it includes things like the facts of the matter but then also all the feelings and emotions and narratives and beliefs and stories that we tie into it and that makes our experience and thirdly is something that I call the belief outcome access by completely changing our approach to life journaling can actually completely change the outcome of our life as well okay let me explain so the outcomes of our life are broadly determined by our actions obviously there's luck and other things involved but the bit that we can control is our actions our actions generally come from our decisions and our intentions our decisions and intentions are generally based on our thoughts and feelings about things so if we think something something or feel something that often leads us to make a different decision those again usually come from our beliefs and the stories that we tell ourselves the things that we believe about ourselves whether those are limiting beliefs and the stories that we tell ourselves about Who We Are Who our identity is what things mean those very beliefs came from somewhere those stories those things that we believe about ourselves they didn't just come from nothing they came from events that went on in our life and the way that we chose to interpret them for examp example if you believe that you're not worthy you're not good enough that leads you to think okay I'm not good enough to apply for this job because they'll reject me anyway because I'm no good obviously cuz that's that's maybe my limiting belief and then that makes me take the decision to not bother applying for the job because they would think oh who on Earth does she think she is to apply for this job because she's obviously not good enough which is something I've decided for myself not that they've actually said it to me and that leads to the action of okay I'm not going to apply for that job and the outcome is I didn't get that job because I didn't even put myself out there in the first place on the other hand if let's say I had the belief that I am good enough I can get this job I am worthy and I'm intelligent and I'm capable and I can learn quickly then that would lead to the thoughts and feelings of yes I feel empowered to do this and then when the opportunity to apply for the job comes up I decide yes I'm going to apply for this because I have that belief and this thought process and this feeling that I can do this and I can give this a go even if they reject me that's okay I'll just try again that's fine I know fundamentally my worth and I believe in myself and that would lead to the action of applying for jobs putting yourself out there which would more likely lead to the outcome of actually Landing that job actually making that change another example is if you have the belief that I am a healthy person who prioritizes my well-being and fitness that will lead to the thoughts of hm how can I improve my fitness feelings of motivation around exercise and taking care of yourself leading to decisions like I'm going to go to the gym three times a week I'm going to eat well I'm going to sleep well and those actions then leading to the outcomes of you are fitter and the amazing thing is this is actually a closed loop where the outcomes that you have they become the life events that then further condition your beliefs they further give you fuel to find evidence to support your beliefs and so actually these outcomes they actually become the life events and that's why this Loop is so powerful because you might look at this and think oh this is so depressing because that means that the life events that's kind of already decided what my fate is going to be you could look at it that way if you wanted to but you could also choose to view this in another way where the beliefs and stories thoughts and feelings decisions and intentions they are not all determined by external things a big influence on that is ourselves we can make choices to change those and that's where journaling comes in and that's why it's so so special I'm going to number these just for Simplicity in this process there's actually a lot of influence that we have to change the way that this Loop goes and by changing this Loop even just a tiny bit and by changing for example just our beliefs and stories and our thoughts and feelings just by a few percentage points that would change our decisions change our actions change the outcomes which then change changes our life events which then feeds back into the circle and it keeps going around so instead of letting this be a vicious cycle of negative beliefs negative thoughts and feelings negative decisions that limit us we want to turn this into a virtuous cycle which actually lifts us up there are ultimately really four segments of this that we influence with journaling and those are how we perceive our life events our beliefs and stories our thoughts and feelings and our decisions and intentions and throughout the rest of this video in each of the journaling techniques that I mentioned I'm going to talk about which one of these we can access with that for me ensuring that there's something of the each of these four segments in my journaling practice has been the most powerful holistic combination for me I highly recommend you try dabbling at least with something from each of these four the first journaling technique is also the simplest one and this is the brain dump this is just where you document your day let your thoughts and feelings arise as they are and just write them down this is quite similar to a technique by Julia Cameron in the artist's way where she talks about a technique called morning pages and this is where you sit down first thing in the morning or sometime in the morning and you just write like 10 to 20 minutes do you just write full pages of stream of Consciousness essentially for me I do this kind of brain dump every day after my morning meditation because often I will have had some thoughts arise during that and notice some things and so then I literally just turn on a timer on my phone for 5 minutes and then just start writing this is especially helpful if you feel overwhelmed by thoughts or you just want to clear your mind because I find that as soon as I've done this I just feel so much more settled and any of these thoughts that I've had percolating or ideas they just come out on the page and as soon as they're out on that paper it's so much easier to draw patterns from them and understand the bigger picture it's also great for documenting your life and sometimes I'll look back at previous brain dumps that I've done where I've written about oh what I've been up to that day and had a snapshot into what I was thinking what I was doing back then next is gratitude journaling my goodness there is so much data and evidence backing up gratitude journaling as one of the most powerful powerful ways to shift our mindset improve our mental health mental well-being connect more with others and even improve our physical health have even been studies that have shown that it can improve your quality of sleep reduce your blood pressure crazy stuff right again this is super easy you can do this in just a couple of minutes a day all you need to do is write down a few things that I'm grateful for today so maybe even just one two or three things one thing that I would do in my bullet Journal is I'd essentially write down a page where I would have one line for each day of gratitude and just write down in sequence a couple of the things I was grateful for that day this also means that I can see on one page a whole month of gratitudes and that was pretty cool having a daily gratitude practice for just 5 minutes a day can improve your happiness as much as doubling your salary which is mind-blowing so instead of trying to hustle for a raise or more money you could just bring in some gratitude journaling and achieve the same impact on your happiness if you're feeling stuck with this I often start by looking at my surroundings and appreciating the present moment things in the present then thinking about relationships my family or my friends and things that I'm grateful for about them or thinking about the events in in the day and what I'm working on areas in my kind of Health my just the fact that I'm alive just the fact that this world exists is something to be grateful for so it can literally be anything or it could literally be I'm grateful for this ruler because it helped me to write straight lines I'm grateful for this pen and having nice stationer to be able to journal with and enjoy the experience of journaling while I'm grateful for this cup of tea even though it's cold it's kind of refreshing and I'm very grateful to be able to enjoy this today interestingly for the coming year my number one valy Val is gratitude I'm going to be focusing on this every single day trying to bring it alive in every single moment and try to bring that consistency into my gratitude practice and consistency and struggling with inconsistency is something I'm going to talk about towards the end of this video so stay tuned for that if you're enjoying this video so far you might want to follow me over on Instagram @ izy I share my stories daily updates including some journaling prompts and journaling things that I'm doing next is one of my all-time favorites which is asking your higher self for advice we all have this version of ourselves that we aspire to be the kindest most loving most compassionate equanimous wisest most confident most calm forgiving version of ourselves that we aspire to be so when I'm faced with the situation often I ask myself well what would my higher self do in this situation how would they respond what advice would they give me for example if I noticed in my brain dump journaling that I was feeling some level of fear and self-doubt around publishing a YouTube video then I could ask my higher self what would she say how would she respond to that feeling or respond to this situation and maybe she would actually say instead of thinking what if I'm not good enough to make this video or what if the video isn't helpful enough or what if you're making a fool of yourself online maybe she would say actually well if your video can help at least one person isn't that so worth it and she might also say that actually you are the only person who can create your video and you are the only person who can believe in your self or let's say if there's a conflict with a friend or family member instead of getting very attached to the ego and being like Oh I'm right or they're wrong was their fault maybe your higher self would remind you that actually it's about the relationship and how can you express love to this person even in the face of conflict how would your higher self choose their response again touching on that whole Space Between the stimulus and response how would they choose in that situation next is bullet journaling which is essentially an amazing system developed by Ryder Carol he has a whole book on it called the bullet Journal method I'll leave a link down to it below bullet journaling is the staple of my journaling and it's the structure that holds all the rest of my journaling it essentially allows you to break down your whole life and keep it all stored in just one handy notebook it's a whole system of migrating information around and developing the sense of intentionality while having a year at a glance month at a glance and also rapid logging where you kind of jot down different tasks you have so it's almost like a mixture of a to-do list and a not taking system and also an event reminder system and a calendar Allin one and this is more of a kind of forward planning organizational life event based Journal but you can also include other kinds of journals within it so this is what I do almost every single day as I write in my bullet Journal breaking down exactly how the whole system works will make this video way too long so if you're interested in seeing my full setup then let me know down in the comments if you want me to make a video about that cuz I can make a video if I do make it I'll link somewhere up here as well Bel journaling for me has helped to keep my life together stop it from falling apart and basically keep it all in one place and in one handy book along with built-in practices of migration and review which build in intentionality and mindfulness along with all the productivity next is expressive writing this is essentially a practice where you write down all your feelings and also the facts about difficult painful emotional experiences James pen Baker and colleagues did a series of incredible studies where they showed that if you gave people the task of writing about the most traumatic experience in their life just writing straight for 20 minutes not censoring themselves never stopping writing just continuously writing talking about the feelings but also the facts that surrounded it and you got them to do this four times within the span of a month that there were profound mental and physical health benefits to this so the way that you can do this in practice is you get out your journal and and then you write for 20 minutes straight not stopping your pen unless you need to have I know wipe a tear away or get a tissue or something out not stopping a pen and just writing continuously about the most painful experience or a very painful experience that you have had do not worry about punctuation spelling or grammar and if you run out of things to say just keep moving your pen so even just draw like a squiggly line or something until you feel like you can start writing again write only for yourself don't make sure that other people don't see this you need to feel like it's a safe space where you can fully Express what you want really let go when you're writing and explore your deepest feelings and Thoughts From The Experience what they actually found when people progress through the four sessions of writing about the most painful experience that they've had so they would write about the same experience was that over time they actually wrote more objectively about it and also linked up some more causation and they kind of started to put it in context and understand it more and process it more and there was a shift to slightly more positive language less negative language over over time this could be especially effective if you have any experiences that you avoid thinking about or you find extremely painful to think about because they do have this baggage on us and they weigh on our hearts on our minds and to start working through that is really part of the process of feeling more whole and healed and settled in yourself the next way to journal is a writing about a story worthy moment one of the things that made us as humans different from other homins and great apes was our ability to really share stories and use it to bring people together and also to find that motivation within us to keep going making sense of our lives and being able to communicate and share this with others in storyworthy which is a book written by Matthew dicks he talks about a homework for life where essentially he writes down just one or two sentences about a storyworthy moment each day something that involves some element of transformation or some moment of realization or just a cool thing that happened that day this is a really nice way to document your life a little bit and highlight something cool that happen so so then when you look back you can see all these storyworthy moments I have a part of my monthly spread where I talk about all my story worthy moments and essentially kind of put them on one page here and each day has one line for me to write a very short snippet of a story worthy moment the next method is a goal setting and manifestation journaling so this is where we think about where we want our lives to be in 5 years time where do we want to be and then working back in 3 years time where do I want to be and then in one year's time where do I want to be creating that vision for ourselves visualizing it and then coming up with goals that we can pursue in order to achieve that and then also manifestations things that we can affirm to ourselves incantations that we can say to ourselves to get into the state of mind that we need to be in in order to be the person who can achieve those goals to make that dream a reality I have a whole video on goal setting so feel free to check it out I'll link it out up somewhere over here and again check out the totally free template down below with all the journaling prompts I'd recommend to work as a companion to this video there's a lot of evidence that shows that when we write down our goals we are so much more likely to actually achieve them so writing down our goals writing down why we want it and how we're going to get there and then manifesting that embodying that and bringing it into our life as something that we affirm to ourselves and remind ourselves of every single day is going to set us on this this path towards achieving our dream life and this is working on part four primarily our decisions and intentions for me one of the big goals that I have for myself is to get better rest sleep is the Foundation of everything else in our lives getting good quality rest makes us more productive more emotionally stable have a more positive outlook on life and generally be able to live life to the full and live our best life and one of the key components of getting good quality sleep is having a perfect blackout something has leveled up my sleep and help me to get much better quality sleep is Manta sleep masks who are very kindly sponsoring this video I literally travel with this everywhere at home or on the road it is a non-negotiable for me to have this mask with me now because it helps so much with for Sleep Quality my personal favorite mask that they make is the Manta sleep mask Pro these genuinely give a true 100% blackout the cups are completely customizable you can literally put them in any position that you want which ensures that you can get that perfect custom fit these have this c-shaped cup where it's like Hollow in the middle here so it doesn't press on your eyes it doesn't press on your eyelashes so comfortable to wear and the c-shaped cup means that at the edge is thinner so that means if you're a side sleeper like I am sometimes then you can lay on your side and it's still really comfy I really like the material that's made out of it's so breathable and comfortable if you're interested in improving your sleep by getting a true blackout that's comfortable and portable that you can bring literally anywhere with you then definitely check out man to sleep I'll leave a link down below and make sure to use the code Izzy for an extra 10% off your order the next method is The Wheel of Life The Wheel of Life Maps out different parts of your life so friendships family career finances Health all of these kinds of things and it invites you to to rate how you're doing on each of those areas out of 10 and then draw a kind of circle I love this method because you can measure your progress over time and how things are going over time you can literally make a chart in so I actually made an Excel sheet where I would track all of my Wheel of Life metrics and each time you do this whether it's every week every month every quarter or even just once a year you can look at the areas where you're lacking or not scoring as highly as the others because the aim is to create a holistic wheel and that's why it's in this sort of wheel is because you're trying to build out the wheel without any like big dents in it so identify this area let's say for example if friendship scored lower than everything else maybe was only a four out of 10 that might be a reminder think okay how can I actually align my goals or set some new goals for myself that would help me to boost this area of my life and equally what are some areas where I'm doing pretty well and I can actually almost like Pat myself on the back and be like you know what you're really smashing it with your relationship with your family or you're really like taking care of your health you're prioritizing your well-being taking care of your worldly vessel next is a holistic check-in so this is Mind Body Spirit so this is where I write about how I'm doing mentally and I use a lot of I feel statements for this so I feel excited for this I feel sad about this I feel all of these kind of statements then I check in physically with how my body is doing how my skin is doing if I'm having any like breakouts or how my body is feeling my workouts my exercise if I'm getting any muscle soreness and then how I'm feeling spiritually which sounds a little bit um maybe a bit woo woo but I find this really helpful to check in if I'm feeling aligned with my purpose my mission if I'm feeling connected to friends and family if I'm feeling connected to spirituality and my meditation and yoga practice I personally do this once a month and it's actually quite helpful because then I can look back at a previous month so for example recently I updated my skincare routine so it's interesting to see month to month how I'm feeling about my skin cuz I'll always write about my skin in in the physical section because it varies so much based on the seasons next is is the weekly review this is one of my favorite ones because it's a keystone habit where every single week you sit down with your Journal you review how the last week's gone the wins the challenges and then you plan the next week and figure out okay how am I going to overcome these obstacles and what am I going to focus on for the next week and one thing that I've done in the past is set almost a theme for the coming week where okay I'm going to focus particularly on this thing for the next week for example in the next week I've noticed that I've kind of let my sleep go and I've not been getting enough rest so for the next week my theme is rest and making sure that I'm prioritizing rest and Recovery it's also nice to set a couple of weekly goals for yourself something small and manageable and then picking out a couple of things that are aligned with your goals that you can realistically achieve in the next week you can also do this as a monthly review if weekly is too frequent for you I personally really like weekly because otherwise it's quite easy to let things slide in a month and having a weekly calendar reminder or alarm that's like like okay time to do your weekly review is such a good accountability for yourself one thing generally about all these journaling techniques is that they are a tool to support you they're here to serve you to bring awareness mindfulness intentionality understanding and compassion this brings us on to the third section of this video which is how to actually stay consistent with journaling because the biggest thing that people struggle with is that they don't keep up with it the number one mistake that people make which prevents them from staying consistent with journaling is that they set the bar too high they give themselves too much stuff to do that it becomes overwhelming and then they give up entirely so keep it really minimal at the start something that you can complete in less than 5 minutes perfect is the enemy of good so don't try to force yourself to complete all the things in your journal every single day because that's actually an unrealistic goal secondly go easy on yourself be kind to yourself and approach it with a spirit of play and lightness and ease this is meant to be enjoyable it is enjoyable it's fun and it can help you to achieve your goals in a way that feels good and authentic so don't beat yourself up if you break your streak it's no big deal you can always pick it up another time it's always waiting for you there to serve you and your journal to be a safe space for you another thing that helps is setting a timer so for example for me right after my morning meditation I will set a timer for 5 minutes and just do 5 minutes of journaling this means that it's time boxed and so it doesn't drag on and also I don't give up after just one minute I sit there for 5 minutes I give that gift to myself of that space for journaling the next tip would be to Habit stacks so for example habit stacking it with meditation so for me in my morning routine I do my meditation and then right after that I have my journaling slot and that means that as long as I've started my morning routine I've chained all these habits together and so then the journaling just happens by default the next tip is to choose a journal that you actually like and you actually love using something that Sparks Joy something that feels good to use so for me I really like the L term 1917 journals I usually use a do Matrix one for the bullet Journal something that you enjoy using the paper for also get a pen that you really like so I like these Muji pens I usually use a 0.38 uh in a black and also a green but just pick some stationary that really like Sparks joy for you to use and you feel like you can sit down and really enjoy the session of journaling the final tip is to adapt it to suit you there's no one siiz fits all for journaling looking at all the different ways to journal you can pick and choose what kind of journaling you want how you want to do it when you want to do it where you want to do it everything is adaptable so experiment with what feels good for you now for the final section of the video which is where we're going to take action on what we've talked about today it's all good and well watch loads of videos about journaling loads of videos about productivity and self-improvement and personal development but if you don't take action nothing's going to happen nothing's going to change so to actually change your life with journaling like it's changed my life like it's changed so many people's lives you need to take action today right now not tomorrow tomorrow literally never comes so let's start today decide on two action points you can take right now to Kickstart your journaling and Kickstart changing your life from today whether that's getting the pack of free Journal templates and prompts that I've created for you down below or buying a journal that you love to use or getting started with one of these journaling techniques just today just for 5 minutes just setting your intention to actually do this for 5 minutes in the morning every day writing three things that you're grateful for make that commitment to yourself today if you enjoyed this video I think you might like this one over here where I talk about goal setting and how to set your goals so you actually achieve them I'm genuinely so excited for you to start journaling it has changed my life and I know it will change yours as always take care of yourself and I will see you in the next video bye

Channel: Dr. Izzy Sealey

Views: 464,437

Keywords: cambridge university, university of cambridge, cambridge medical student, doctor, izzy sealey, issy sealey, izzy sealy, learn mandarin, learn chinese, language learning, self development, health, productivity, burnout

Id: o0wnBT1Sqng

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 17 2024