The Self Journal Has Fueled My Business

How to push yourself to be your best using the Self journal as your personal trainer.

I’ve always been a believer in personal accountability and monitoring as ways to create growth and achieve goals. I am constantly experimenting to make myself a better and more effective human being. Toward that end, I have journaled my whole life.

When I was a little girl working on breaking bad habits, I would track bad behavior and promise myself a reward after a certain number of days without incident. This strategy often didn’t work and I ended up feeling like a failure. I learned that this sort of monitoring works better when tracking positive changes instead of dwelling on the negative. I started setting daily goals for positive behaviors and celebrated successes along the way instead of shaming myself for making mistakes.

In recent years, I’ve tracked runs and swims and bike rides when pursuing fitness goals: my first half marathon, triathlon, trail run, and so on. I’ve tracked yoga sessions, meditations, and number of days without wine as I’ve worked on clearing my mind. I’ve tracked outreach, conversations, and coffee dates as I’ve worked to build my business and move from employed to entrepreneur.

In addition to all of this monitoring, I live and die by my calendar because I believe that if you don’t consider time when you make plans it’s like trying to cook without fire.

Around the time that I began building my business and I generally had more to keep track of, I saw an ad on Instagram for the Self Journal.

Click-Click-Sold.

The journal showed up soon after and has been a trusted buddy in my business building journey ever since.

It has kept me accountable and focused on daily tasks and at the same time, keeps the bigger picture in view. Having the sections pre-printed on every page is a major part of the journal’s effectiveness; I used up my first journal over the summer and thought “I’ll just use this format in a blank journal.”

NOPE! Two months later there were only two pages filled out in that journal and I’d lost momentum. I ordered another Self journal and got back on track.

The journal includes:

1. Monthly Planner

2. Weekly Goal Tracker

3. Daily Journal (This is the part I can’t live without.)

The daily journal is made up of: Time, Gratitude Journaling: Morning, Goal, Daily Targets, Wins and Opportunities, Gratitude Journaling: Evening

Here’s how I use it:

I’ve modified the daily journal slightly to meet my needs: namely the lower portion of the right hand page where I keep my general observations and musings.

1. The morning gratitude space is the first thing I fill in. Starting my day by reflecting on the things that I am grateful for has made a huge difference in my mindset.
2. Next, I use the planner on the left to plan my day, keeping in mind the time it will take to complete each item. This isn’t a new practice for me, but writing it out each day as opposed to keeping it in my Google calendar solidifies the information in my brain in a more meaningful way.
3. I use the dotted space next to the calendar as a running to-do list. This list moves along with me as I move through the journal and contains ALL of my to-do items. I move it about every 4–5 days, rewriting a new list with undone to-dos. Then I add to it throughout the day as things come up. Unless something is an emergency, it goes on the list.
4. In addition to keeping this list, I plan “work on misc to-dos” into my days at regular intervals. Planning that time allows me to focus on knocking out to-dos without them being constant interruptions.
5. On the right side I log my “Goals”; for me, these are my higher order goals. They’re the north star for that period of time. I limit this to just 2 or 3 goals. (The first section of the Self journal includes goal planning activities; these can teach you more about being clear and specific with your goals and the actions you will take to reach them.)
6. Below my goals are the 3 highest priority items for the day to be completed.
7. Last, I’ve adapted the lower portion of page two to be a flexible journaling area. I found that I wasn’t using this space as it was designed and was supplementing with regular journaling pages. Based on this, I adapted the space for my general observations, musings, etc.

Here’s what you can do:

Get started. Grab a Self Journal. I am not affiliated with them in any way — just a fan! Once you have your journal you can use the advice I’ve given here or find your own style; whatever you do, don’t get discouraged! Once you get in the groove, you’ll rely on it as an accountability partner to keep you moving and making progress toward your goals.

If you’re not ready to grab a journal, I recommend you do the following three things for immediate impact:

1. Start your day with gratitude.
2. Plan your day in your calendar using time-blocks for each activity.
3. Keep a running to-do list with you at all times (this could be a piece of paper in your pocket) and add to it as the day goes on. Do not let interruptions disrupt you; put them on the list and plan to-do blocks into your days.

Want my help? — See me here: www.jackiecolburn.com