The Art of Journaling

Over the last 10 years, I’ve been approached and asked so many times, what are you writing? Are you writing a book? Why are you always with a journal? I’ve probably not left my house 90% of the time without a journal. And so I’ve had family members like man, you drink a lot, man, you got a lot of books, man, what are you doing? Are you author? Are you this Are you that? Hey, so today’s episode, I’m going to explain and demystify my process of journaling, what it’s done for me, why you should do it, and the impact that it can have on your life. My personal history with journaling, most likely dates back to 99 2000. After graduation, I was writing a lot of notes about books I was reading, I was reading Think and Grow Rich, a black choice based upon a Polian Hill, but written by Dennis Kimbrough, and it was probably job interview questions, and I had to grocery store me three subject binders.

And over time and time, I realized, as I take notes about my life, I want I want something that’s gonna last the long run. So I went out and bought Barnes and Noble thick travel book, probably $30. And while I was buying, and I was also probably asking myself, why am I spending $30 on an empty book. So I went ahead and bought that travel with a little bit learned that I liked different notebooks. And my relationship with paper chase started, then Paper Chase is my favorite brand of journals, but they were in borders and was borders closed, you can only get them on the black market on the internet. So over the course of the years, I’ve always had a journal with me 90% of the time that I leave my house, I have a journal with me, and a pin, tell point seven liquid shell ink pen.

That’s all I need. That’s all I need. So over the years, I’ve probably went through I’ve probably went through maybe 1012 journals. And these journals range everything from philosophy, which is the primary journal, photography and notes and techniques, creative layout and formatting. I’ve also had journals that are process type journals that helped me get through an issue. I’ve also had journals of appreciation, you know, where all I do is just write out what I appreciate. Sometimes it’s been prefaced with a statement of things that make me smile. Wouldn’t it be nice if these are the things that I appreciate about X, Y, or Z? And is crazy, they usually take about a year to fill up. And it’s an opportunity to really focus and reflect.

So why should you dip your toe into the pond of becoming an avid journaler? Now journaling isn’t necessarily keeping a diary. Journaling isn’t necessarily wussy. A lot of people that I talked to especially some guys, they’re like, oh, man, I don’t keep a diary. I don’t record all my thoughts. Well, some people have their journals for different reasons. The reason I have my journal, it dates back to listening to Jim Rohn. In the art of exceptional living. The first thing he said is anybody with over a $200,000 home has a library because they should value information they should read and the legacy that I want to pass on to my children, to my family, to those who follow my material. I want to have the ability to transfer my ideas, my rationale, my thinking, my process of coming into the country. allusions that I came to, through my personal writings.

Now the beauty of these personal writings is that you can reflect and look back and see how far you’ve grown. See which ideas that had to had to get pushed aside and watch other new, more holistic ideas become integrated. As I look back through some of my journals, it may be sometimes a little bit embarrassing to see some of the things that I thought, or how I approached us. One of the other reasons I love the journaling is because as you date them, and as you reflect on a time in your life, you can look back and see your mentality during your highs, and your lows. And ask yourself what really got me there, what took me to the apex. And as you look in and you see the number of journal entries and a number of entries that had you on fire, it’s like, man, now you have a snapshot into your mentality, and you can recapture and recreate those moments again.

So journaling isn’t a wussy day. Journaling is the opportunity to make that $15 $20 journal, it could be anything from a moleskin to type of journal you get in Barnes and Noble, it could be any kind of journal. And you’re able to take a blank book and make it priceless. You get to fill in every page with your ideas, which are dreams, which outlooks, which are conclusions. Most of the time, we accept what we believe about the world, based upon the propaganda and the marketing tools that TV and other media share with us. Most of the times we weak encapsulate the platitudes that are all of these things, cookie cut phrases that we haven’t even personally internalize. The magic of the journal isn’t about writing what’s on your head, it’s about thinking before the pin, even a hits to paper is my favorite point.

Because you have to process these things you have to internalize you have to reflect in you’re not going to waste your time sitting and writing about something that’s not meaningful to you. It allows you to sit back and take inventory, and weigh the decisions you’ve made or weigh the decisions you will make in a way that puts it all on paper. You know, you hear the phrase, images worth 1000 words. But the culmination of all the words that you’re capable of putting in a journal is priceless. Because some pictures can’t tell the words of our emotion, and our feelings, and where we’re thinking and our perspective on life and our perspective on death and the perspective of our loved ones, or the ability to appreciate a friend and send him a note based upon some of the conclusions you may have reached during the journaling session.

Journaling can really enhance the quality of your life. Most of the time we take things for granted, we act and then reflect Jim Rohn once said, make sure your actions are the product of your own conclusions. Make sure your actions are the product of your own conclusions. And unless you’ve taken your can your ideas into a workshop. And so the journal is it’s a workshop between your pin your mind and that paper. Together, all of those things are cemented into time and space on a piece of paper. You can look back, you can reference you can give your child a photo album, but it doesn’t tell them who you are. Or journal is a gift that you can give future generations a glimpse into now, a glimpse into the things that you’re awaiting a glimpse into your attitude, a glimpse into to how you approach conflict, a glimpse into your personal philosophy.

And there’s nothing that I do this more exceptional. And that’s more special than my process of bringing my holistic philosophy on the world into form than through my journal. This will impact you, if you use the journal to actually see where your mind is that you can actually apply things that you’re discovering more and more about yourself, into your relationships, into your career, into your health, into your diet, into every aspect of your life that you you claim the value. It’s an opportunity to see yourself in a different light. It’s the opportunity to reflect and spend some time to reflect. Now I’m not asking you to journal every day. I’m not asking You will journal all the time. But having this journal will allow you another means to keep accountable to yourself. Because the promises that we make others pale in comparison to the broken promises that we make for ourselves. That’s my spiel on art journaling.