Let’s talk about journaling, or starting a blog like this one that you’re reading, and you should Just Do It (JDI). I think you should journal and write consistently.
You need some creative outlet for yourself that helps you process and catalog your experiences. Perhaps writing isn’t your thing. That’s okay! Writing is something that can be learned. Maybe you’ll never be great at it, and that’s okay too!
This blog is an example of someone journaling about their life experience and sharing it with the world. Is the writing groundbreaking, the prose lyrical, and the next Hemingway reborn? Nope! Not even close. But, I made a decision to Just Do It. I do this for myself and to share what morsels of small wisdom I have with others to help them. But ultimately, I write these stories and share them for myself.
Why Journal
I never took journaling seriously until I was in college. I was looking back at old photos I had taken a few years earlier of a trip I had taken to Europe and I could not remember a single detail of where that picture was. That was a lightbulb moment for me because I vividly remember when I was getting ready for that trip, my mom telling me that I should keep a journal so that I would remember my travels. As a high-school Junior, did I take her advice? Nope. I thought I would remember everything based only on the photos. Now, nearly 20 years on from that trip, I grin at that lesson learned. And so I started to journal.
My writing was inconsistent at first and for many years. A paragraph here. A sentence there. My writing was all over the place. And a few years into work, back when I was still reading voraciously 50-100 books every year, I came across the John Adams biography by David McCullough. I was hooked on this individual and style. Throughout that book it was clear that Adam Smith was a prolific writer. He journaled verbosely, and is why Adams was able to build and convey such a vivid biographic epic that it inspired me to emulate Smith’s habits and rituals. And so, I made the decision to write more consistently, even if I didn’t have much of anything to say. I wanted to “just write” and let thoughts tumble out onto the page or screen as they came to me with no filter. Just raw ideation and creative output.
You have to come up with your own WHY to journal. Only you know what will motivate you deep down, but I encourage you to just try writing, and to try it consistently for a few years. Just do it. Because in a few years, when you look back at your journal, you’ll be amazed at the wealth of experiences you’ve had, including some you may have forgotten.
How to Write Consistently
Just Do It!
That’s terrible advice, but that is the crux of the matter. I suggest that you first DECIDE that you are going to write consistently. Once you have made that decision, then COMMIT to it and that you will follow through with what you have decided. And finally, PLAN how you will carry out your decision to write. And remember, you have already decided and are committed to do this and there’s no backing out now! There’s nothing to it but to make your plan for how you’re going to achieve the goal now.
As for me, I made this a daily ritual in OmniFocus that I would do at the end of the day as I was winding down. The driver for me to choose this time of day was about dumping all the noise, worries, and anxieties in my brain out into something that was not in my head. My hope was that I would overcome my challenges with a racing mind, which prevented me from falling asleep quickly. And so I started a multi-year ritual of journaling every day about my experiences, about my dreams, about my fears, and about what ticked me off during the day to be able to let go and release all obsessive and unproductive thinking that impacted my sleep.
Epochs: Significant Nostalgic Events
I have a concept that I call Epochs, these are timeless milestones in our lives that etch themselves into our memories with the permanence of a tattoo. They’re like emotional time capsules that encapsulate the essence of an era and evoke an intense sense of nostalgia.
Here’s how it works with one of my own epochs. This will not mean much to you, but for me, when I go back to this epoch it helps me recall a vivid time in my life with all the bad and all the good.
1. Play Audio
Appreciate by Lemaitre [and anything by Lemaitre really]
2. Visual
3. Memory Recall
This ambiance of this time, space, and ease. I sit on the couch with music playing in the background: Lemaitre. I’m nestled up in my second apartment in Colorado Springs on Walsh Point. Those tunes lightly playing from my TV and Bose stero, filling the room with a melodic embrace as I lounge on the couch, engrossed in the vibrant world of “Questionable Content” comic strips. This was in my hardcore Medifast days–an era when early bedtimes and calorie scarcity turned my evenings into a haze of mental fatigue. Good times? Not really. This personal backdrop blends into the haze of the sheer scale of work to be done at my employer as we worked feverishly and around the clock to split the company into two S&P 500 sized entities.
Oh how I hated this apartment building. Right next to a freight train rail tracks where a fully loaded train seemed to pass by every 20 minutes or so. The plates and kitchenware in the apartment would make gentle rattling sounds and the vibration would keep me from falling asleep.
4. When was this?
The 8 months or so I lived at Encore Rockrimmon Apartments circa 2014, near the railroad tracks that caused the apartment to vibrate.
Look Back: On This Day . . .
There is tremendous power in journaling, consistently, every day. It doesn’t matter whether you think you have something significant, momentous, or inspiring to write about. If you don’t have anything to write about, you can write about how you don’t have anything to write about! If you do this for several years and then look back at your creation, you will see how you have evolved and grown over the years to become the person you are today.
I always enjoy taking a quick look back on past journal entries that I’ve made “On This Day” through the years. Sometimes the memories are as clear as day and vivid in my recollection as though they had just happened yesterday. And sometimes my mind is blown about something that I wrote years ago that I had completely forgotten in the time since then! And always, I see how I am changing and growing as a person which is motivating to keep on with the ritual into the future.
Give journaling a try, consistently, every day. Now get to writing!
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