Journaling has endless benefits, but sitting with a blank page can feel daunting at first. Today I’ll share how I got over my own resistance to journaling and how you can too…with manageable baby steps! Journaling is the best way to access the incredible insights, ideas, and solutions that are already inside you. Not only does it help with knowledge retention, but it creates a record you can use to reflect on your accomplishments as well. Start putting pen to paper for a short 5 minutes every morning, and you’ll be hooked before you know it!

Read transcript below:

Steve Napolitan: Welcome to More Business, More Life Daily. Today we’re going to talk about journaling and the impact that’s made on my life.

Today we’re still into the morning routine. Yesterday I talked about meditation. Today I want to talk about journaling. After I meditate, I journal. Now I have to be really clear with you. The journaling part was one of the hardest parts for me in my morning routine. I don’t know why. Maybe just even this goes to childhood stuff. I just always never, I never felt like I was a really good writer. Even all the books and things that I write that you get from me, I speak them first, get the transcript, and then I edit them. I become better and better at writing. This might not be difficult for you, but for me, sitting there with a blank page definitely was troublesome for me. I’m just being a little vulnerable and transparent with you. But I do it now on a daily basis and I’ve found it’s very, very beautiful.

I keep two journals. I’ve got my business journal. I T take one of these with me when I’m doing meetings or wherever I’m doing. And then I have this journal which I refill and I do write on paper. I know some people are using iPads and you can write on them pretty well. I have thought about that on the business side because then it’s searchable, which is really cool. One of my clients does that now. With the new iPad you can write pretty well and then you can have your words be searchable. I think for a while, I’m going to continue to have a journal like this where then I can go ahead and put my thoughts in there after my meditation. That’s why I’m doing this video.

Second, because in my mind when I wake up, I meditate first. Then I journal. The reason I journal right after that is because I want to take down the thoughts that came to me while I was meditating. Almost like when you wake up from a dream and you want to write it down or you wake up and you have these ideas. When that happens to me in the middle of the night and I can’t fall back asleep, I definitely grab my journal and I write down everything and then it allows me to fall asleep. And definitely after my meditations I want to get those words down.

Now coming back to the difficulty for me. When I started, I just actually wrote today is such and such, it looks like it’s going to be a warm day or I would just write down basic thoughts just to get the habit of putting pen to paper. And then that just slowly went away. Now I put down my thoughts like I feel this way or today I feel tired or today I feel full of energy. I put down my feelings. Then I put down, hey, I think I need to make a new decision in my business. I think we need to move in this direction. I need to do this with my team. I put down those thoughts and it’s so interesting to look back because as I developed in my business, sometimes I would forget what I put in my journal. I’ll be like, oh my gosh, that’s what I did. And it gave me time to reflect.

And that’s one of the reasons that I like to write with a pen because I learned from a teacher that when we type, it’s eight, eight, eight. The number eight, eight neural pathways to the brain, and then when I would able to write down things, when you write down things, then it’s over. It’s over 2,000 neural pathways to the brain when you’re writing that. So it helps imprint into our brain and that’s why when we write things down, we tend to remember them. I know when I used to be in school and I had to prepare for a test, just by writing things down in my notebook, then even not having that notebook or not even reading it back, I would tend to remember or recall those things because I wrote it down and I was imprinting to my brain. Little did I know that. I just noticed that in high school and that served me really well. And so sometimes I would just write notes. I would never look back at the notes, but I would remember better than if I didn’t take notes.

This writing habit has become a huge thing and then I can look back. So when I’ve been creating new businesses and I need to create brands and I’m writing about the brand or the culture, as I’ve needed to make business decisions, as I sit and think about my clients, all kinds of ideas come out and I let them flow onto paper now. So my recommendation to all of you is to start slow. Like I said at the beginning of this week, the things that I do every morning are meditating, I journal, I read and I work out. And so, I started with just five minutes. Literally, you can set a timer or put on a piece of music that’s three to five minutes and just write as much as you can.

I find that having a timer helps because when you sit there with a blank page and give yourself as much time as you can, then you won’t write anything. But if you have a time limit and you just write things down, then as quickly as you can, it actually gives a direct throughput from your brain and you don’t think about it. You just do. My biggest suggestion to you is mark out some time and just put a few minutes to start with, get a journal and then, start writing down things. Then every once in a while, maybe once a week at the beginning or once a month, look back at some of your entries and notice what’s changed or what came about in your life. It’s a great tool to get my ideas down.

Tthen even the times when I don’t look back at my journal, it does make an effect in my life. And then sometimes, many months later I look back and I’m like, oh my gosh, I did that. Oh, that thing that I wanted, it came true. It really has helped me in my manifestations and working through the things that I want in my life. I hope this serves you. I hope you go try it out. Let me know what happens when you do. Share in the comments below and I will be with you again tomorrow. As always, remember, choose gratitude and create freedom. Talk to you soon.