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Journal to Increase Your Growth Mindset and Grit

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“Keeping a personal journal a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.” — Stephen R. Covey

At this time of year, there is a plethora of advice on how to set and achieve your goals. Knowledge, motivation, intent, and desire serve as a weak catalyst for the changes you want to make and the goals that you want to achieve. You are guaranteed to face obstacles to the improvements that you want to make this year. The best weapons you have against those obstacles are having a growth mindset and having grit. Therefore, let us explore journaling to increase your growth mindset and grit.

I can almost hear a collective suspire and the words being spoken “who has time for that?” Try my structured journaling process for four to six weeks. Then you can compare your growth and progress to where you would be without that practice.

Growth Mindset & Grit

Dr. Carol Dweck, a psychology professor at Stanford University, brought us the concept of growth mindset. In her research, she discovered the impact of having a “fixed” versus “growth” mindset. Dr. Dweck summarizes her findings as follows: “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more those with a fixed mindset…” Because of that, it is important to explore how one can journal to increase growth mindset.

Dr. Angela Duckworth, is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She delivered a popular TEDtalk: “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance”.  She defines grit as “perseverance and passion for long-term goals.” It is important to know how to journal to increase grit.

Imagine what would be possible for you if you had an ingrained belief that you could grow, change, achieve. And imagine that you coupled that belief with an unrelenting passion and perseverance. I believe half of your success equation would be in place.

Further anneal your success with a daily, conscious, deliberate, reflective, experimental, and persistent effort towards achieving your goals. Now, any success that seemed elusive has transformed into success that is highly attainable. Daily journaling about your goals and how you are investing your time and energy in your priorities, forces you to align with and course correct as needed in order to do the small daily, weekly, monthly actions that your goals require present every single day.

If you still feel ambivalent about investing time to journal, it might help to know the numerous benefits that journaling affords. The benefits of journaling can be:  increasing cognitive abilities, increasing mindfulness, goal achievement, increase in emotional intelligence, boosting memory and comprehension, strengthening self-discipline, improving communication skills, healing, exercising creativity, increasing self-confidence, increasing clarity, deeper self-awareness, stress reduction, improvement in problem-solving, and helping with improving relationships.

 

Journaling Template

It is a lengthy template, but I journal twice a day. I rarely go beyond one page (front and back in my 9X7 journal). So it is not much writing. There are many areas, but my reflections are brief. I synthesize. I have adapted my template from the Michael Hyatt’s daily journal template.

Frist page of Journal: One of the first pages in my journal lists my goals in each key area of my life and at least three sub-actions (commitments) that must happen in order to achieve those goals. My areas for goals are Spiritual, SELF, Spouse, Children, Family and Friends, Home/Finances, Business, University Work, Coaching Skill Development

 

Morning Journaling Session

Sleep: I note how much sleep I obtained the night before. This compels me to ensure that I sleep the hours that I need to function optimally. Moreover, there are interesting correlations between sleep and outcomes of the day based on adequate or deficient sleep.

Word of Day:  – I am a logophile, and I love learning new words.

Spiritual Reflection:  A short reflection based on Scripture or a short spiritual reading.

“Yesterday I…”: I describe the events that happened yesterday…sometimes in as little as two or three sentences.

“What I learned…”: Here I reflect on the insights from yesterday. How can I leverage yesterday to be better today?

“Today I am grateful for…”:  It is always good to start the day with gratitude. I do this by writing one sentence of gratitude  (meaningful or seemingly inconsequential things that make life beautiful).

Today’s Goals: My daily goals are 80% informed by my goals for the year, which are recorded on the first page of my journal. As I create my daily goals, I look at my goals’ page and draw from there. I only allow myself three goals. I accomplish (work towards) more than three things. However, the ones designated as goals for the days take precedence over everything.

 

Evening Journaling Session

I write the word Examine and then reflect on the following:

“I am reading/learning about ….”: I always want to be learning, reading something, listening to a podcast, thinking deeply about concepts. Moreover, I record a couple of sentences for that.

Review of Clarity, Focus, and Intensity: This is where I reflect on my time and energy use. My three words for the year are clarity, focus, and intensity. So I reflect whether I approached my three goals with clarity, focus, and intensity.

“Tomorrow, I want to be mindful of …”: I desire to do better tomorrow than I did today. My intent is to grow. Therefore, I set an intention based on my insights of the day.

“Never go to sleep without a request to your subconscious.” — Thomas Edison

My win from today:  Always, always end on a positive note. So no matter how small or grand the win –document it.

Some people sleepwalk through life. When you are investing time to journal about life and reflect twice a day you will awaken. You will become conscious of all the unconscious things that are working against you. You will not only awaken to internal factors that hinder you, you will also awaken to external factors that hinder your progress. Moreover, you will be able to avert those.

Lastly, next year, it will be easy to closeout 2018. You will have your journal replete with entries documenting your life, how you gave of yourself to others and to your work, of your struggles, and triumphs. You will have your goals and the works that you did towards achieving them at your fingertips. Moreover, you will have documentation on the progress of those goals. I hope that your year-end synthesis and refection will amaze you and fill you with gratitude because you lived the year well…with a growth mindset and with grit.

References

Dweck, C. (2016). What having a “growth mindset” actually means. Retrieved January 9, 2018, from https://hbr.org/2016/01/what-having-a-growth-mindset-actually-means

Nguyen, T. (2017). 10 Surprising benefits you’ll get from keeping a journal. Retrieved January 8, 2018, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com/thai-nguyen/benefits-of-journaling-_b_6648884.html

Purcell, M. (n.d). The health benefits of journaling. Retrieved, January 7, 2018, from  https://psychcentral.com/lib/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/

 

 

 

Rewind and Closeout 2017: Seven Insights Before Starting on 2018 Goals!

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“I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” ~ Mark Twain

Before you fully enter your 2018 life, take a moment to closeout 2017. This will help and inform as you create your 2018 goals. I did this, and I am astonished by the insights that I gained. I consider myself a person who reflects regularly. However, there is something powerful about ceremoniously synthesizing a year, to gain insight, and bring closure. As I closeout 2017, I can clearly see that I did not distribute my commitment and energy in proportion to my priorities. One of my top priorities received much less of me. Moreover, the closure process inspired me to ask myself these three questions at the start of any significant activity in 2018: What is the outcome that I clearly want with this? How can I be focused on this activity? How can I increase intensity in the things that matter?

Before fully stepping into 2018 Goals, Closeout 2017!

Instauration of 2017

Francis Bacon wrote Instauratio Magna (The Great Instauration) an uncompleted collection of works that calls for the renewal and restoration of a utopia on earth in which mankind functions from an enlightened state based on knowledge and truth.

In that spirit, we are compelled to allow time for an instauration of 2017. Many times, individuals are apt to make a precipitated leap from one year to the next. For a society that likes instantaneous outcomes, it makes sense that the old of 2017 would be perfunctorily abandoned for the allure of a clean slate, of the potential and promise that 2018 holds.

However, we are products of our past whether we acknowledge that or not. We would do well to see the wisdom in synthesizing the events and experiences of 2017 and walk into 2018 empowered with that new awareness and those new learnings. The gift of life over 365 days was not lived perfunctory…it should be honored.

I propose that you process 2017 with a pen at hand. Writing is a process that helps one synthesize and gain clarity in thinking. It is a process that allows your conscious mind to meet your subconscious. Those who journal can attest to the moments of unexpected insights and “epiphanies” that can surface as one writes freely.

Dr. Caroline Leaf (2013, p. 181-182) explains that writing is a complex process that is cognitive and metacognitive (helps you think about your thinking). In journal writing the
frontal lobe becomes highly active, the temporal lobe and hippocampus become engaged and aid in recalling existing memories, and the structures in the midbrain activate to deal with the emotions that are evoked.

Furthermore, Dr. Henriette Anne Klauser (2000) makes a compelling case for the power of writing by sharing that writing triggers the reticular activating system (RAS), which signals the cerebral cortex to be aware and attentive to what is happening, to what you are writing.

7 Prompts that Will Give You Insight

Here are some prompts that you can use:

1. You can list eight dimensions of the human person and reflect how you did in each in 2017. The eight areas can be spirituality, intellectual development, physical care, relationships, material and financial aspects, vocational (career) contribution, and recreation/enjoyment.

2. What things am I grateful for from 2017? (Write a long list!)

3. My accomplishments for 2017 were… (Don’t allow negativity bias to set in, stop and celebrate your wins however small or large they were).

4. If I had to give 2017 a title or a word what would it be?

5. If I took away one message that will be a call to action to sharpen and refine myself based on what happened in 2017 what would that be?

6. What I know now that I did not know in 2017 is ….

7. If I could redo 2017 what three concepts/actions would describe what I could have done differently…

Now You are Ready for 2018 Goals!

Now, you have clarity and a baseline from which to create the 2018 that you desire to live. You have more clarity in the areas that you can sharpen and refine to become a better instrument of meaningful contribution in 2018. You are ready to create your new goals.

You took that time to collect some anecdotal and “qualitiatve” data to inform your next steps. Moreover, if you are mindful of your insights and willing to allow them to inform all that you do, think, and say in 2018, then you are less apt to show up with the same unaccomplished goals on December 31, 2018. This time you stand a better chance at effectuating change by allowing yourself this exercise in self-awareness.

The 5 Coaching Conversations Effective Leaders Must Have

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