What Happens When You Journal Every Day For A Year

 

I journaled every day for one year and nearly all of my main accomplishments throughout my life, happen to come from that 1 year’s time… here’s my story.

 

Preface

 

What you’re going to find here in the following paragraphs is a series of goals and accomplishments scaling from tiny, up to life-sized and life-changing. Much bigger than that, however… you’ll get to take a look at a real-life transformation from a guy who lived his life with nothing but bad habits to show for it, to someone who is all about bettering himself and the folks around him… all from simply writing down notes in a journal.

 

Life One Year Before Journaling

 

Each and every day was about the same, I’d get home from work somewhere between 7pm-12am (unstable work schedule) and I would say a few words to my then fiance, take a shower, and then lay in bed and watch videos or play games until 4am. I would sleep in until about 30 minutes before having to start work again, and repeat the process.

 

This was not only just how my year was, this was how my life was.

 

It wasn’t because I didn’t have any thoughts of becoming someone who was successful, or because I didn’t have any dreams. In fact, I was full of plenty of dreams which would periodically surface in my head in a “you’ve done nothing with your life, give your all to this random thing” fashion. Oftentimes, my dreams were recurring thoughts of something I had previously tried but failed at. 

 

Constant Giving Up

 

Throughout my childhood, I was notorious for trying something and then immediately giving up on it when it didn’t work. Whether it be becoming a professional singer, becoming a business owner, to being a P.E teacher, I would give up on every goal or aspiration I had.

 

It’s almost as if whenever I would get excited about doing something or being someone, and tell everyone about it… I would put an invisible curse on myself to never follow through with it. I cannot count the amount of people I have proved right from aged 5 to 25.

 

Why I Started Journaling

 

I started journaling because I was unhappy with myself and finally understood that, if I wanted things to change in my life, I would have to change.

 

I had discovered journaling about 6 years prior, whilst listening to the first seminar I had ever discovered on YouTube, which happened to be Jim Rohn. He made promises of lasting change and swore by journaling and personal development to be the reason behind everything grand in life.

 

Now, it’s important to understand that this was not my first ever attempt at trying to journal. I had tried and stopped about 10 different times, all with the same notebook. As previously mentioned, I’d get random bouts of excitement and motivation only to call it quits a few days later after failure of hitting any goals. So why was this time any different?

 

The Difference

 

I needed one more piece in the puzzle for everything in my life to start moving forever in the direction I had always wanted. I was one piece away and never knew it. This time was different because of an opportunity that arose, the opportunity to finally get a book written by the only man that had ever spoken motivation into me, Mr. Jim Rohn. 

 

You see, over the past 6 years, I would periodically visit the bookstore here and there, in an attempt to find a book or two written by him that I’d always heard about, however, there was never one in stock. Looking back now, I could have simply purchased the books online. Here’s the thing though, I wasn’t ready to receive it. I obviously hadn’t wanted it bad enough to figure out a way to attain it which is precisely why the time I got it meant everything.

 

First Month Journaling

 

My first real month of journaling was a little all over the place as you’d expect and I wasn’t necessarily using it “properly”. I’d write down some goals that I wanted to hit and would open the journal all throughout the day checking stuff off as I went along, not making many entries at all actually. However, It wasn’t actually the stuff that I was writing down that was slowly shaping me into the man that I had always dreamed of becoming. I would later realize upon reflection, that the act of me simply following through with something that I decided to do on my own, was everything that I ever needed. 

 
Here’s an example of one of my first real journal entries that helped forever change my life:

 

  • Drink 2 liters of water
  • Eat an apple
  • Call someone today
  • Read
  • Don’t drink soda today

As you can see, nothing crazy or super special here!

 

I had these same goals written down for a week straight. 

 

Looking at these now, they seem so easily attainable. However, I’ll never forget the struggle that I knew was to come through hitting these goals. After day 3 of marking them off 1 by 1, I remember telling myself “This time you’re serious”, because this had not been the first time I had bouts of motivation and worked on personal development for a few days straight. Something simply felt different this time around. 

 

The first couple of weeks went by and I would slowly add other goals in the mix because of how easy the first few were at that point in time to me. And after my first month… I was officially hooked and had formed a habit of writing in my journal every day! From then on I would start my journey on becoming my best self.

Present Day

 

Plenty of things have been accomplished since beginning nearly 2 years ago, a lot of which you can check out here.

 

But if i’m being honest… the only part that truly matters out of this whole experience up to this point in time, is that I simply made the decision to continue journaling. 

 

Had I quit when I didn’t feel like doing it any further (which came to mind a few different times, per usual) then I would have nothing new to share and would still be in the exact same place. 

 

This website would have never been created, I’d still be smoking, I’d still be lazy, I’d still be unhealthy… you get it. It’s ALL because of my decision to continue pushing forward. It all started because I simply wrote a few things down every single day for a month, the rest is history.

 

Closing

 

I wrote this article to show you what it takes to go from being someone without direction or meaning in their life… to someone who genuinely loves waking up every day in hopes to help others feel as happy as they do.

 

Did not take much at all.

 

If there’s one thing I learned from this wonderful experience of journaling every day for one year, it would be this.

 

You don’t have to be the same person you were last year, last month, last week, or yesterday. If you simply take note of what’s going on in your life, you slowly start to weed out what you don’t love about it and replace it with what you see fit.

 

You don’t even have to have a plan right now, you’ll naturally come up with one. There’s magic in being completely honest with yourself, and journaling helps you do just that. You can start the process whenever you choose, however, do it now. You won’t regret it.

 

Wishing you the best with much love,

 

Mason

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