The type of person you want to become—what the purpose of your life is—is too important to leave to chance. It needs to be deliberately conceived, chosen, and managed. The opportunities and challenges in your life that allow you to become that person will, by their very nature, be emergent.
At the beginning of the year, it is common to to reflect on the previous year and think about things you want to change in your life. Additionally, as many of us our now starting to use the new children and youth program, we are also looking at how we can improve.
Maybe you want to lose some weight or spend more time with your family. Maybe you want to make progress in your hobbies, learn a new skill, or work on a passion project. We all have hopes and dreams for the future.
Yet, all too often, when we start working to improve, our motivation and momentum quickly evaporate. We then become frustrated; having made minimal progress.
This experience happens all too often. In fact, we have all been there. When this occurs, we may be tempted to conclude that goals are just not for us. We may even think we are the problem. We might even claim that we can’t achieve our goal because it is simply too big. Maybe we just aren’t capable of achieving our goals.
These are all very natural reactions. I believe, however, that we all have vast amounts of untapped potential inside us waiting to be released. We just need to use better tools to help us release that potential. Journaling is one of the most powerful tools we can use to unlock our untapped potential.
What We Can Learn From Nephi
And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters.
In the Book of Mormon, we are told the story of the young Nephi being commanded to build a ship. Nephi was the third son of a prophet named Lehi. The Lord commanded Lehi to flee from Jerusalem. He took his family and fled into the wilderness. The Lord guided Lehi and his family in their journeys through the wilderness and eventually they ended up in a land which they called Bountiful.
Nephi tells us that Lehi and his family toiled and struggled in the wilderness. They had married and had children (1 Nephi 17:1-3). Every day they had to hunt and search for food. They had times when they nearly perished from hunger (1 Nephi 16:19). They even had family members die ( (1 Nephi 16:34). In fact, they had traveled in the wilderness for eight years before they came to the land Bountiful (1 Nephi 17:4).
When they arrived in the land Bountiful, they found a land full of fruit and honey. They had been led to a land where they surely felt they could finally rest from their troubles. Many of them surely thought Lord had delivered them to the “land of promise” when they arrived in the land of Bountiful. They were undoubtedly grateful for the blessings of the Lord.
The only problem was that the land Bountiful was not the promised land the Lord had prepared for Lehi’s family and their posterity. It was just a rest stop along the way.
After Lehi and his family had been at Bountiful “for the space of many days”, the Spirit told Nephi to go to the mountains to pray. When Nephi went to the mountain the Lord told him that the land Bountiful was not the promised land the Lord had prepared. The Lord commanded Nephi to build a ship so the Lord could carry them across the ocean.
Imagine for a moment the scope and gravity of that commandment. Nephi was commanded to build a ship, something he had never done before. And not just build any ship, but one big enough and secure enough to carry his entire extended family across the ocean. I can only imagine how daunting that request must have seemed.
Nephi’s response to the Lord’s commandment to build a ship does much to teach us how we should respond to commandments from the Lord. Nephi did not complain. He also didn’t dismiss the commandment because it seemed overwhelming, even though it almost surely did feel overwhelming. He asked the Lord for guidance on where he could go to obtain ore that he might build the tools he would need to build the ship.
The Tools To Build Your Life
Each family prayer, each episode of family scripture study, and each family home evening is a brushstroke on the canvas of our souls. No one event may appear to be very impressive or memorable. But just as the yellow and gold and brown strokes of paint complement each other and produce an impressive masterpiece, so our consistency in doing seemingly small things can lead to significant spiritual results.
We can learn a lot from the story of Nephi. Just as he was commanded to build a ship, we too are commanded to do big things in our lives. While we likely will never need to build a ship, the commandments of sharing the gospel, personal improvement and service to others can often feel similarly daunting.
In order to succeed in achieving great and daunting things, we need to have the right tools. Just as Nephi needed the proper tools to build a ship, we need to use the proper tools to build our lives and testimonies. Journaling is one of these tools.
Journaling is a tool that will help you focus and direct your life. It will help you uncover your hopes and dreams. Journaling will also help you build a plan and stay on course as you build your future.
Before You Begin
Keep it simple. Keep it focused. Keep it relevant.
Many people struggle with journaling because they misunderstand the nuts and bolts of how to journal. Others just don’t know how to start a journal. We will discuss some ideas for how to journal below, but these suggestions will not help you if you don’t actual start to keep a journal. Therefore before we talk about how you can use your journal to build your future there are a couple of things you must do first.
Pick Your Journaling Medium
The first thing you need to do is decide where you want to keep your journal. Do you prefer writing by hand or typing? Do you want to keep your journal in a notebook or with loose-leaf paper?
Over the years I have used all of these types of journals. Different journaling tools have fit with my life at different times. Currently, I use dotted bound notebooks as I find they allow me to journal whenever and wherever I want.
At this point, it really doesn’t matter where you keep your journal. What matters are two things in particular:
- That you choose something you are comfortable using.
- That you make the decision and start.
Take a moment now and decide where you want to keep your journal. If you are unsure, start with a normal notebook.
Remember you can always adapt how and where you keep your journal later, so don’t worry about making the “right” decision now.
Pick Your Journaling Style
The second thing you need to do is pick which journaling style you want to use. If you have ever done an internet search on how to journal, you know there are a lot of different types of journaling practices available.
Picking what type of journal you want to use keeps many people from starting a journal at all. Remember, it is not important that you choose the perfect journaling style before you start. You always have the opportunity to update and change your journaling style as you find what works best for you.
As mentioned above, here are some of the popular journaling styles you may have heard about before:
- Standard Daily Journal: With a standard daily journal each day you will write the date and then write about what is happening in your life. This is the kind of journaling people are most often familiar with.
- Gratitude Journals: To do Gratitude journaling you simply write about the things you are grateful for in your life. In their purist form, gratitude journals are only about reflecting on what you are grateful for. However, writing about your blessings in life can be incorporated into any style of journaling.
- Morning Pages: The idea behind morning pages is to sit down and do stream of consciousness writing (writing whatever comes to your mind) every morning. Morning pages journaling typically involves writing for a specific number of pages or amount of time each day. The purpose of this writing is to help you discover how you really think and feel about your life and feelings at a deeper level.
- Bullet Journals: There are a lot of different styles of bullet journals, but at its most basic, bullet journaling involves daily tracking of thoughts, events, insights and pretty much anything else as bulleted lists. It employs a simple method for categorizing bullets. Bullet journaling also involves creating “collections” for larger topics that you want to track and for managing your schedule and planning. This is the journaling method I use as I find it provides a high amount of flexibility and ease of use.
In addition to these few types of journaling there are many, many more. The most important decision you can make with journaling is to get started. If you are unsure where to begin, start with a standard daily journal.
Don’t Worry About Getting It Perfect
As mentioned above, the important thing is not to wait to start journaling until you have the perfect system. In fact, the only way to find the system that works best for you is to start journaling regularly and evolve your process as you go. When you do this, you can find what works for you. Then you can make your journal into a truly powerful tool in your life.
Now that you’re ready to get started, how can you use your journal to lead to great changes in your life? We will discuss three ways you can use your journal to build the future of your dreams.
1. We Need To Have A Talk…
If happiness is the result of our actions, then we need to stop asking ourselves how to be happy. Rather, we should be asking ourselves how to be.
Deep down we all want to be happy. One important element in finding happiness is knowing what you want in life.
Many of us however don’t really knowing what we want in life. Because we don’t really know what we want, we spend our time on low value activities and then wonder why we aren’t really happy.
How can we expect to be happy if we don’t know what we really want? In order for us find more happiness and fulfillment in life, we must first find out what we really want in life. Only then can we start to work towards our dreams. There a couple things we can do to learn what we truly want in life.
Ask Yourself Important Questions
#1. What’s the #1 thing I could start doing today that, if I did it consistently, would have THE most positive impact on my life? — then do it.
#2. What’s the #1 thing I could stop doing right not that, if I stopped doing it, would have the greatest positive impact on my life? — then quit doing it.
The first step we can take to find out what we really want in life is to ask ourselves questions. Asking ourselves important questions and then taking time to ponder find your answers will help you clarify your dreams and desires.
You need to ask yourself powerful questions that focus on your hopes and dreams and how you live your life. Here are some examples:
- Who do I want to be a year from now? How should my life be different?
- What are my highest priorities in life?
- Is there anything I know I should be doing but am not? What is keeping me from doing it and how can I start doing it?
- Is there anything I know I should not be doing? If so, what can I do to stop doing it? What better activities or habits can I replace it with?
- Are there skills I have wanted to learn but have not started to acquire?
- If I had to rank my hobbies and interests, which one would be the most important to me? Which one would be the least important to me?
- How do I use my free time? Is some of it consistently used for my highest priorities?
- Which of my regular activities will I think were a waste of time when I reflect on them 5 or 10 years from now? Which of my regular activities will I be grateful that I did 5 or 10 years from now?
- How do I want others to remember me? What legacy do I want to leave?
This is not a complete list of questions you can ask yourself, but it should give you an idea of the types of questions you should be pondering.
If you are going to build a future that is better than your present, you need to reflect and evaluate your present. You need to be honest with yourself as you answer these important questions. When you honestly seek to answer these questions you can uncover your deepest hopes and dreams and gain clarity on what will make you happy.
Use your journal to record your answers and feelings about these questions. The act of writing them will help you as you discover and clarify your answers.
Don’t be surprised if this is hard to do. The task of clarifying your dreams and evaluating your life is work. Usually it is hard work. Trust that this is extremely valuable work that will pay dividends in the form of happiness in your life.
Start A Conversation With Yourself
We can’t be true to ourselves if we don’t know what we want, and more importantly why, so that’s where we must begin.
As you work to answer deep and important questions about your life, you will likely encounter some questions you don’t know how to answer. Most people don’t regularly take time to ponder such profound questions about life. Like everything else in life, examining your thoughts and feelings—your hopes and your desires—is a skill that must be developed.
Use your journal to dig for answers to the questions you find challenging. You can do this by using your journal to have a conversation with yourself. One form of journaling called “stream of consciousness” journaling is especially helpful in this process. Stream of consciousness writing is done by writing whatever comes to your mind without taking the time to evaluate and edit your thoughts as you write them.
To use stream of consciousness writing in your journal, pick one of the questions above. Then pray and ask your Heavenly Father to help you find the answers you are looking for. Then open up your journal and just write every thought that comes into your mind about your question. We all have inner dialog going on in our heads all day, every day. When you target your focus and your pondering on a profound and important question, ask the Lord for help, and then write whatever comes to your mind, it can help you wade through your confusion to find how you really feel.
When you have finished writing, take the time to read what you have written. Every time I have used this in my journaling I have felt that I gained guidance from the Spirit and learned things about myself and my hopes and dreams that I didn’t know.
This is not always easy and doesn’t always immediately yield answers, but it is a powerful tool for gaining clarity about your thoughts and feelings. As you use your journal to have this conversation with yourself, you will become more attuned to the Spirit and to your own heart.
2. Make A Plan
The best way to predict your future is to create it.
As you begin to find clarity on your hopes, dreams, and feelings for the future, you can use your journal to build a plan of action. Each of us has the potential to do great things. When we create a plan and then work to follow that plan, we can make great progress.
One of the best ways to build a plan for achieving any important goal is to reverse engineer the goal. To reverse engineer a goal means to define what achievement of that goal would look like and then start breaking it into smaller steps until you have steps that are actionable.
Start by picking one goal you want to achieve. This could be anything from learning a new skill to breaking a bad habit.
As an example let’s consider a simple goal of reading the Book of Mormon. To begin you would pick a target date for completing your goal. Let’s say you choose April 1st so you can complete your goal before General Conference.
To reverse engineer this goal you would then need to determine how many pages you would need to read each week to reach this goal. Then you could break it down further into how many pages you need to read every day.
Use your journal to create this plan. As you create your plans seek to be as clear as possible. If you have a clear plan it is much easier to take steps towards achieving your goal.
Record your plan in your journal. Then use your plan to identify what you will do each day. Life is busy and often full of responsibilities that we don’t have full control over, but by taking time each day to work towards our highest priorities, it will allow us to constantly move closer to our dreams.
Each month, week and day, review your big picture goals and determine what you need to do that month, week and day to get you closer to your goal. This will keep you focused on your goals and allow you to continue to make them a reality.
3. Return And Report
When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of improvement accelerates.
When using your journal to guide your progress towards your goals, it is important that you reflect regularly on your efforts. Evaluate the challenges you encounter and celebrate the successes you achieve. Journaling is a powerful tool for doing this reflection.
Whatever your goals might be, you are likely to encounter challenges and obstacles as you work on them. Sometimes these challenges will be external, at other times they will be challenges with yourself. Use your journal as a place to honestly review and evaluate the obstacles you encounter. This will allow you to adjust and adapt so you can overcome these obstacles.
Additionally, when you are working to achieve important goals you are also sure to see victories and success as well. Reflecting and pondering on your successes will help you identify what parts of your efforts are helpful. This will give you the motivation to keep working towards your goals. It will also help you build your success into even greater victories in the future.
Great Futures Are Built From Great Days
You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. That means developing great habits. Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments, and that bridge must be crossed every day. Over time that daily crossing becomes a habit. And ultimately, people do not decide their future; they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.
Everybody is building their future one day at a time. This is true for each of us. Whether you are actively trying to build your future or not, each and every day your are laying the foundation for your future life.
Because of this, we all have the potential to build the future of our dreams. All you need to do to build a great future is to build great days.
Journaling is one of the most powerful tools you can use to help yourself create great days and by so doing create a great future.
So start journaling today! Don’t worry about being perfect. Don’t worry that you will do it wrong. Just start. As you write in your journal consistently you will learn what works for you. You will discover how to use your journal to make your dreams a reality.
Ready To Be Better?
If you want to overcome your weaknesses and draw closer to Jesus Christ, check out my free guide called: “Daily Closer to Jesus Christ Checklist”