How Journaling Saved My Life (and could do the same for you)

Let me take you back to July 2003.

At the time, I was working behind the bar in a dingy pub near the village where I lived. Every night, I had to pull pints, clear cigarette butt laden ashtrays into the bin and crouch down in the pubs’ humid basement to grab bottles of beer and J20 to restock the bar above.

It was horrible work – probably the shitiest job I’ve had (it’s between that and working in a call centre). I hated it but didn’t appear to have the resourcefulness to find anything else.

This was a surprise to me as, the year prior, I’d discovered the world of personal development. Like a sponge, I’d soaked up information on the power of belief, the potency of my subconscious mind, the law of attraction, the necessity of having a Definite Chief Aim and the significance of my thoughts.

I felt like I knew it all and yet . . . here I was working in an environment that couldn’t have been further from the life of my dreams.

Something was missing.

All I knew was theory. When it came to creating a tangible change in my life, I had nothing to show. . . until I discovered the power of journaling.

Journaling On Steroids

I’d actually started journaling the previous year. At the time, I was completing my finals and needed an outlet for the angst I was experiencing about post university life.

Although I only put pen to paper sporadically (to this day, I write rather than type my journal entries), it always had a wonderfully calming effect on my mind.

After I left university, I continued the practice but changed the focus of my journal entries.

Inspired by my discovery of personal development, the dream of becoming a bestselling self-help author had formed in my mind. As a result, my journal now served the function of charting progress towards this objective.

This helped but it wasn’t until July of 2003, while working in the aforementioned pub, that I added a crucial dimension to my journaling practice that was to change everything.

The idea behind this change was simple.

I needed a way to measure my progress. While I felt like I was growing, I had no real method of ascertaining whether my life was actually getting better.

This is where I came up with the idea of scoring my days.

Calibration

From July 2003 onwards, I started rating all of my days out of 10.

With 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest, I calibrated the quality of my life and got an accurate picture of where I was at.

After doing this for a month, I came to the conclusion that I was between a 5 and a 6 out of 10.

Yes, my life was boring but it wasn’t terrible. I had a roof over my head, food on the table and although I was still suffering from a string of psychosomatic conditions and sleeping badly, there was nothing seriously wrong with my health.

Going through this process was a wake up call. Many of us have a tendency to think our lives are shit until we sit down and take stock of the things we do and don’t have.

Sure, back in 2003, I didn’t have a girlfriend, a social life, a career or an interesting way to make money (and was still living with my parents). However, I did have stability, security, my body was in tact and hobbies in the form of playing tennis and going to the gym.

Life was dull but it wasn’t a disaster.

Learning this lesson grounded me and provided a platform to aim higher. From here, I started thinking about what it would take to score a 7/10 day rating.

I also added another facet to my journaling program that would significantly improve my life.

Results

Whereas scoring my days out of 10 helped me see the wood from the trees, noting every significant result gave me the feeling I was moving forwards and switched my focus from negative to positive.

Recording your results is as simple as it sounds. Every day, write down in your journal all significant success you’ve had (and if you don’t have any just write ‘none’). (Btw, if you want to read a sample entry from my journal to see how all of this works, read till the end where I’ll share one with you).

You may ask, “What counts as a significant success?” 

My answer is anything that moves your life forwards (even if it’s just a little).

For me, it was;

• Getting tennis coaching clients
• Winning important tennis matches
• Getting hypnotherapy clients
• Helping a hypnotherapy client achieve their objective
• Selling a copy of my book
• Selling multiple copies of my books in one go
• Getting a book deal
• Crossing the 1000 copies sold milestone
• Going on a date
• Getting a long-term girlfriend
• Having a really good time with friends and family
• Making a profit on an investment

The list could go on but you get the picture. 

I’ve tried to include my significant results in chronological order (at least when it came to my professional successes). This is for a reason. 

I discovered, when perfecting this program, that what counts as a significant result one year, might not the next. 

For example, I didn’t see tennis coaching as a big part of creating the life of my dreams (more a stepping stone). So, once I’d established a client based, and it was providing me with a liveable income, I didn’t count gaining tennis coaching clients as a significant result anymore. 

Instead, my focus switched to selling books. Just one sale would count as a significant success. However, over a decade on from when I started, I’d need to be selling at least 20 copies a week to have that impact.

Do you see how this works?

To build the kind of momentum that will move you towards the life of your dreams, you must continually grow and achieve at higher and higher levels. 

How It All Worked 

Once I added this two step program to my journaling practise, my life started to change. 

Within 6 months I’d left the pub behind and was working as a tennis coach. 

Within 2 years, I was working as a hypnotherapist.

Within 3 years, I was regularly going on dates and then got a long term girlfriend. 

Within 6 years, I’d bought my first house.

Within 9 years, I’d published my first book.

Within 15 years, I got a publishing deal. 

Did all of these outcomes occur because of the journaling practise I’d created?

Probably not. However, it was the single most influential factor. 

It turned me into a positive, motivated person. 

The positivity came from only recording the successes I achieved (I’ll never make a note of my failures). Of course, I still fail (they occur far more frequently than the successes and I always try to learn from them) but I refuse to allow these failures to become the focus of my life. 

The motivation comes from trying to reach the next level. 

When I first started this practise, I wanted to go one level higher than where I was at (6/10) and score regular 7 out of 10’s. Once I’d done that, the goal became 8’s and so on and so on. 

22 years later, I now score regular 10 out of 10’s (but I want every day to be a 10). This keeps me motivated. There’s always something to aim for. 

How You Can Adapt This For Yourself

I hope my story has convinced you to give this journaling practise a try. Just to be clear, there are only two parts to its completion. 

1. Score every day out of 10.
2. Record every significant success you achieve (can be more than one per day)

If you want some help with calibrating your days, use Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (see picture below).

You can see that the American psychologist split the human needs into five different levels. For the sake of your journaling practise, each one is worth 2 points. 

So, if you have all your basic needs met (food, roof over your head and don’t have a life threatening illness), then you should be at a 4/10. 

Then, if you have love in your life and good relationships, perhaps you’re at a 6. If you have all this and are successful at your work, then perhaps an 8. If you have all of these things and are living your life’s purpose, then you could be at a 9 or a 10. 

Having said this, though, sometimes your feelings are the best guide to creating an accurate day rating. 

How good do you feel on a day to day basis?

Are you loving life?

If so, score yourself higher on the scale.

Here’s an example from my journal. 

Did Journaling Really Save My Life?

Ok, so I wasn’t suicidal back in 2003. However, moments of depression were all too common and I’d just come out of an even worse time at university. 

Of all the personal development strategies and hacks I’ve tried, I can honestly say that journaling (and, in particular, this system I created for myself) has been, by far, the most powerful. It’s the thing that turned my life around and saved me from a life of misery and wasted potential. 

My hope is that it does the same for you. 

(If you want coaching on how to use this journaling method, email me at joe@escapethesystemnow.com and put ‘journaling’ in the subject bar to get 25% off your first session).

GET YOUR FREE COURSE  

If you want to discover a passion you can make a living from and overcome the fears that are holding you back, check out my free course 30 Days to Escape The System. Click here to get the course right now! (You’ll find the tips on developing belief and self-confidence fascinating!) 

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash