Journaling: 5 Easy Strategies For Behavioral Change

Many great thinkers have examined the content of their thinking using their journals: “Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life”, Marcus Aurelius wrote in his personal journal to keep his mind straight living a life at the pinnacle of political power.

“Suicidal is this distrust of reason; this fear to think; this doctrine that ’tis pious to believe on others’ words, impious to trust entirely to yourself. To think is to receive…” the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson penned in his journal on July 29th, 1831.

Virginia Woolf kept a diary from the age of 33 until her death in 1941, once suggesting to herself: “I should graze nearer my own individuality.”

The writer and political activist Susan Sontag kept a journal because: “In the journal I do not just express myself more openly than I could to any person; I create myself.”

To follow in the steps of these great thinkers, we can create and understand ourselves by capturing our thoughts in our journal; we can create windows of opportunity to notice behavioral patterns previously withheld from consciousness, and ultimately understand our life a little better.

A tried and tested technique.

But!

There is a problem.

Look:

Sometimes, simply capturing the stream of thought isn’t enough to get at the problem that is bothering us.

For this reason, I want to share with you how you can go deeper when journaling for behavioral change through 5 actionable steps.

Why?

Because journaling in this way I am about to show you can be a powerful tool for changing thoughts and behaviors.

Ready?

Disclaimer: I am NOT a clinical psychologist. This guide is meant as a tool to optimize habits (such as morning routines) by examining one’s thoughts and behaviors using a journal. If you are experiencing any form of serious psychological distress, see a medical professional.

I: Turn Thoughts Into Words

When thoughts and behaviors resulting in undesired outcomes become cyclical, we often can’t help but feel a tinge of helplessness.

We can experience this as being stuck in a loop, reinforcing the idea that we can’t change this repeating pattern.

One explanation for this outcome is that the cognition we would need to solve the puzzle is busy chewing over past failures.

That is:

We can’t start thinking about a solution when we spend valuable brain power thinking about the problem.

For this reason, it is probably a good idea to put our thoughts into words…

…because when thoughts become words, we can look at them from afar; we can study them deeply, and extract from our written thoughts meaning…

…and see with clarity what the main source of our cognitive discomfort is.

How to start?

Great question!

I do all my journaling in Notion (mostly because my handwriting is that of a child)…

…so to begin this process, I open a blank page and spew out everything in my mind; I stare at that empty screen and just begin writing.

There is no need for the words to make sense; they don’t have to have adequate coherence or obey the laws of logic — the analyst hasn’t started working yet.

I am simply having a compassionate conversation with myself about what is bothering me, with the intent of turning my thoughts into words.

Now, I am talking. When I am finished talking, I will listen.

But at this point, the goal is to fill the page with as much of my thinking as possible.

I spend as much time writing as I see fit.

The moment I breathe a sigh of relief and feel as though I have extracted what there is to derive, I move on to the next step.

II: Find One Thing To Solve

Inevitably, this exercise will produce sentences that do not get at the problem. To separate the wheat from the chaff, I turn from writing to reading.

I look for words and sentences that stand out, carefully reading what I wrote until I find something that resonates with what I experience as being the core of what is bothering me.

That is:

What I am intent on changing.

When I understand what the source of my dilemma is, I write in one, brief sentence that I want to become better at it.

If there are several areas of improvement, which is often the case, I pick the most fundamental.

That is because it usually solves the other, less significant problems — or at least gets me going.

It is crucial to start small.

That is, so that the changes aren’t herculean in nature, but implementable with a simple correction and minimal effort.

Preferably, I should feel more motivated and able to change a behavior than how hard that behavior is to change.

To accomplish this, I simply follow this format:

“I want to become better at X.”

Keeping things simple will make the solution easier to implement.

When we have an easy time devising implementable solutions, we can more easily change what is troubling us.

Joscha Bach maintains that suffering is caring about things we can’t change. To reduce distress, then, we should aim at changing what we care about and have the ability to change.

The reason?

When we perceive ourselves solving problems, we feel competent and autonomous. As a result, we update our beliefs and begin trusting ourselves enough to solve more complex tasks.

To begin this journey, we should start small…

…because small wins are easy wins…

…and when it is easy to win…

…we rack up the motivation and ability to advance.

The idea is to create a continuous linear motion in a forward direction while preventing us from moving in the opposite direction.

To accomplish this, we can write one thing we would like to become better at, based on the stream of thoughts from the previous phase.

Why?

That is so we can feel motivated and able to extract meaning from our introspective endeavors — and ultimately implement a solution to reduce distress and suffering.

When we have one, crystal clear sentence that describes what we want to become better at, we move on to step three.

III: Write What Isn’t Working

After I have extracted my thoughts and settled on a single thing to solve, I write in bullet points what isn’t working with that particular behavior.

I write the bullet points in succession based on how the usually behavior plays out.

The rationale behind this exercise is to see what aspects of this behavior aren’t working, what fails first, and how many maneuverable pieces there are.

The goal is to isolate every aspect of a given behavior so that I can see what isn’t working at every juncture.

The point is to make the problem smaller and thus easier to solve.

It usually ends up being roughly three individual aspects of a given behavior.

There is, however, no upper limit…

…but I try to keep the numbers low so that it is easier to implement actionable solutions.

Why?

So I can see positive changes faster and build trust, motivation and self-confidence.

For this reason, a great question to ask is the following:

• What is it that currently makes the behavior not work as desired?

I then identify key obstacles, often in the form of behaviors I am currently not doing or at least that I could do better or more effeciently, that prevent me from performing a particular task.

When I have a clear sense of what obstacles are in my way, I come up with ways of how I can begin changing each aspect of this behavior.

IV: Find Solutions To What Isn’t Working

When I have identified the key impediments, the next step is to devise strategies to change them.

I ask myself:

What can I do right now to change and improve my behavior at each juncture?

I examine what I am doing at each step to identify what prevents me from getting the desired outcome. I then write what I can change within each meta-behavior to solidify the foundation upon which the primary behavior, the one I want to improve, rests.

Important to note:

I don’t write direct orders; I make suggestions.

Remember:

I am having a conversation with myself about how I can improve my quality of life; I am not telling myself what to do.

Journaling is not only an exercise in behavior change but one to increase self-awareness.

One way to not become resistant to my own attempts at life betterment through self-awareness is to have an open conversation with myself regarding weak points in my behaviors.

It’s easy to fall into the habit of blaming oneself for not changing a particular behavior…

…for not updating one’s way of thinking…

…and for having negative self-views.

For this reason, I make it a priority to play the humble observer; I notice areas where I could improve and let myself know that:

Hey, I see that you are trying to establish this habit. That’s great! Therefore, I’d like to suggest how you can do even better.

Instead of:

Damn! You failed to do this again. How hard can it be?! Just follow these steps and…

The point is twofold:

We want to feel relieved because we noticed something that isn’t working optimally…

…and competent enough to change it.

Described differently:

We are not foolish for having failed in the past; we are wise for having discovered how we can improve in the future.

With this mindset at our immediate disposal, we can move on to the next step, where we devise actionable solutions to improve our behaviors.

V: Decide On An Actionable Solution

When my thoughts are words, I have identified the one behavior I’d like to change, and I have managed to pinpoint various obstacles within the primary behavior that prevent me from getting the desired outcome, it is time to decide on ways to initiate the process of turning these obstacles on their heads.

First of all:

I usually congratulate myself on having discovered pain points and their underlying causes.

The findings might seem trivial or even obvious once I’ve gone through this process of self-examination.

But this is hard work.

And hard work should be rewarded.

I then ask myself the following question: what do I need to initiate these changes?

The answers I come up with are usually the polar opposite of what I discovered in the last phase…

…which is super helpful because now I know roughly when and where the behaviors I want to change occur…

…and when and how I should implement the relevant changes.

Here is the most exciting part.

We can now ask ourselves the following question:

Which of these actionable solutions can be implemented today?

At this point, I choose the one solution that is the most reasonable starting point.

I then congratulate myself for having done so, I summarize what needs to be done in one sentence, and schedule a follow-up the next day so that I can see what positive effects this way of journaling has had on my life.

If we’ve followed all these steps carefully, the answer should be crystal clear, and we should be well on our way toward a more productive life.

Oh, just one more thing:

Beyond behaviors, this could also mean that I need to make certain investments that would make my life easier. Ryan Holiday summarizes my philosophy on the topic beautifully:

“It’s good to be frugal, but if you don’t spend your money to make your life or your relationships or your work easier, what exactly are you going to spend it on? …. Don’t grit your teeth and bear it. You can only get so far white knuckling things. Remove the friction, improve the system — and money (not a lot usually) should help you do that.”

It can sometimes feel frustrating having to make purchases to solve a behavioral problem, but as the saying goes:

• Buy quality, cry once.

Think of it this way:

We are not spending money; we are making investments into our mental well-being.

And throughout my life, I have never regretted having done so.

Summary & Final Words

We tend to ruminate, continuously thinking the same thoughts. These thoughts can reinforce the idea of helplessness, giving the problem at hand too much wielding power.

But when we get in the habit of examining our thoughts and behaviors, we also learn that most of what we spend days and weeks (or even months) thinking about can be solved today through a little self-examination and analytical thinking, using the right tools.

In this case, journaling.

In conversations, I’ve noticed that people tend to get to the first step of this process when they journal about the buzzing in their heads.

Yet, they are dazzled by the thought that there are actionable steps to further investigate their thinking; that they can decipher the buzzing thoughts to come up with practical solutions.

Therefore, I wanted to share this journaling technique with you because, perhaps, it can be useful in your life.

This is not the only way to examine one’s life — or even the best — but this is how I think about it.

Hopefully, it resonates with you, too. 👏