Change Your Life by Journalling in 2024 - Ali Abdaal - video Dailymotion

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Change Your Life by Journalling in 2024 - Ali Abdaal   dailymotion.com/arshian   How to guarantee you regret your life:https : //dai.ly/x93180y   My honest advice to a perfectionist:https : //dai.ly/x9319i4  My honest advice to someone who’s doing too much : https://dai.ly/x9319ty  My honest advice to someone who feels behind in life : https://dai.ly/x931a78  My honest advice to someone who wants financial freedom : https://dai.ly/x931ex2  If I Wanted to Be a Millionaire Before 30, I'd Do This : https://dai.ly/x931gzm  The Best Book I've Ever Read about Making Money : https://dai.ly/x931j9y  How to Go From $0 to $10,000 a Month in 4 Steps : https://dai.ly/x931kb6  How to Make $10,000 Month Writing Online : https://dai.ly/x931l42  How to 10x Your Income The 4 Ladders of Wealth : https://dai.ly/x931ldm  Why You Feel Lost in Life by Ali Abdaal : https://dai.ly/x933252  How to Figure Out What You Really Want in Life : https://dai.ly/x933hm8  How to Change your Life in a Year - 3 Simple Ideas : https://dai.ly/x933u78

Transcript

00:00Hey friends, welcome back to the channel.

00:01So if there is one single habit that's most changed my life,

00:04that habit is journaling.

00:05I've been journaling pretty consistently since like 2015,

00:08and I can attribute so many of the good things

00:10that have happened in my life

00:11as a result of journaling consistently.

00:13Now you might be thinking

00:13that you don't have time for journaling,

00:15what good is writing about your thoughts

00:16and feelings gonna do anyway?

00:17Maybe you've tried it a couple of times

00:19and it hasn't really worked for you.

00:20But something that I put a lot of money on

00:21is that if you approach journaling in the right way,

00:23then I can basically guarantee

00:24that it can change your life for the better.

00:26So in this video, I wanna share the why behind journaling,

00:28why it's such a powerful tool for changing your life.

00:30We're gonna talk about how to actually journal

00:32and the three levels of journaling.

00:34And along the way, I'm gonna be sharing

00:35a bunch of different powerful questions

00:37and journaling prompts that I find incredibly useful

00:39for driving positive change in my life.

00:41So broadly, there are three main reasons

00:42why journaling is incredibly effective.

00:44Firstly, it's a nice way to look back on your memories.

00:46If you write about what you've been up to

00:48and how you've been feeling, it's super nice.

00:49I now look back from journal entries

00:50for the last like eight years,

00:52and I can see what I was doing on this day,

00:54a year ago, two years ago, four years ago, five years ago,

00:56and it's really cool to see the progression of my life.

00:59But then we've got reason number two,

01:00which is even more powerful,

01:01which is that journaling helps you take control

01:02of your own thoughts and your own mind.

01:04Now, especially if you're prone to stress

01:05or worry or anxiety or fear,

01:07or you're letting fear of judgment and fear of failure

01:10and fear of self doubt,

01:11you're letting these things hold you back

01:12from doing the things that you really want to do.

01:14The reason for that is that your mind has a thought like,

01:16I don't know, I am unworthy, I'm not good enough,

01:18I'm unloved, I'm not good enough to do this thing.

01:20And because the mind is so powerful,

01:21it can immediately marshal up evidence

01:23to support that limiting belief.

01:25Now, the benefit of journaling

01:25is that by writing this stuff down,

01:27by writing down your thoughts and feelings,

01:29you cut through the BS

01:30that the mind is very good at generating.

01:32And when you see these thoughts written down on paper,

01:34it's easier to not believe them so much

01:36because our minds can lie to us.

01:37Our mind is ultimately a survival machine

01:38that's just trying to keep us out of danger.

01:41And the more you write about your thoughts and feelings,

01:42the more of this sort of detachment you get from it,

01:44you stop identifying so much

01:46with your thoughts and feelings.

01:47And this really helps for people

01:48who are struggling with anxiety or fear or unworthiness

01:50or lack of self-love,

01:52which to some degree is literally everyone on the planet.

01:54But the third, and I think the most important benefit

01:56of journaling is that journaling can completely change

01:58the way that you approach your life.

01:59So how does this work?

02:00So let's imagine this kind of diagram,

02:02and it's pretty uncontroversial to say that our results

02:04and the outcomes that we get from life

02:06are broadly correlated with what actions we consistently do.

02:09So in a way, actions lead to results.

02:11If for example, you eat well and you exercise regularly,

02:13then the result is that you're gonna be

02:15fairly healthy and fit.

02:16But what is the thing that leads to the actions?

02:17Well, I would argue that that thing is decisions.

02:20Initially, before taking an action,

02:21you decide what decision to take,

02:23and then that decision dictates the actions,

02:25and then the actions lead to the results.

02:26For example, for me, the decision

02:28to start this YouTube channel six and a half years ago

02:30dictated the actions, i.e. making videos consistently,

02:32which has led to the results of my life

02:33being completely transformed.

02:35Whether you decide to take this job or that job,

02:37whether you decide to marry this person or that person,

02:39whether you decide to move to this city or that city,

02:41completely changes the direction of your life.

02:43But there's one thing that's upstream of decisions,

02:45and that is thoughts and feelings.

02:46Now within thoughts and feelings, we've got beliefs,

02:48which are just thoughts and feelings

02:49that we identify with very strongly.

02:51And then we also have the stories that we tell ourselves

02:52about our life and about our place in the world.

02:55And then we also have the day-to-day thoughts and feelings

02:56that we all experience.

02:57And all of these things combine our beliefs,

02:59our stories, and our thoughts and feelings

03:00to lead to certain decisions.

03:02For example, for you to make the decision

03:04that you're gonna start your own business,

03:05you have to have the thought

03:06that that would be a cool thing to do.

03:08You've gotta have the feeling of self-confidence.

03:09You have to have the thought of what the concept is,

03:11what the business model is gonna be.

03:12You have to have a bunch of thoughts, feelings, and beliefs

03:15in order to get to the decision,

03:16and then that decision dictates your actions,

03:18and then those actions completely change your life.

03:19So why are we talking about all this stuff,

03:21and where does journaling fit in?

03:22Well, journaling is how we understand

03:24our thoughts and feelings,

03:24because journaling is literally the process

03:26of writing down our thoughts and feelings

03:28so that we can interrogate them,

03:29so that we can ask questions of ourselves,

03:30and so that we can get clarity on what are the stories

03:32and beliefs and thoughts and feelings

03:33that we actually have.

03:34Now, other than journaling,

03:35there's another really cool tool that I use

03:36to help me figure out

03:37what I've actually been doing with my time,

03:38and that is Rise,

03:39who are very kindly sponsoring this video.

03:41Now, I've been using Rise every single day

03:43since November of 2021,

03:44so it's been almost two years since I started using Rise,

03:47and it's a fantastic cross-platform apps

03:49that tracks your time across any website

03:51or any app that you're using.

03:52And so without having to think about it,

03:53you can see how productive and intentional you're being

03:56when spending your time.

03:56Like I can show you how much time you spent on Zoom calls,

03:58how much time you spend on Notion writing stuff,

04:00how much time you spend on Google Docs,

04:01how much time you spend on YouTube and Netflix

04:03and Disney Plus and all this other stuff,

04:05and it helps you track how many hours you've worked

04:06across the whole week.

04:07It gives you reminders if you've been working

04:08for more than 50 minutes of when you need to take a break.

04:10And I really like it as a way of helping me understand

04:13what I've actually done with my time,

04:14and sometimes I'll even screenshot the Rise window

04:16and chuck it into my journaling app of choice,

04:18which is Day One.

04:18And actually, I liked the app so much

04:20that I reached out to the founders

04:21and asked if I could invest in it.

04:22And so we, as a company, are now angel investors in Rise

04:25because we believe in it so much and because it's just great.

04:27So if any of that sounds up your street

04:28and you would like a really effective

04:29and low friction way to track your time

04:31and figure out how you're spending your time

04:32and whether you're spending it intentionally,

04:34then head over to rise.io forward slash Ali Abdaal.

04:36And if you use that link or you use the code Ali Abdaal,

04:38then you can get 25% your first three months.

04:41So thank you so much, Rise, for sponsoring this video,

04:43and let's get back to journaling.

04:44Let's now talk about how to journal

04:45and the three levels of journaling.

04:47So level one is the most basic form of journaling,

04:49and this is where you just write down

04:50what are the things you have done today?

04:52Now, one of my favourite ways of doing this

04:54is from this book, Storyworthy by Matthew Dix,

04:56which I read in 2020 and was the best book

04:58that I read that year, hands down.

04:59Now, Matthew Dix is a world champion storyteller.

05:02He's won competitions, like world competitions for the thing,

05:04which are apparently a thing.

05:05And one of the exercises that he uses to tell better stories

05:08is called Homework for Life.

05:10And the idea behind this is that at the end of every day,

05:12you ask yourself, what was the most storyworthy thing

05:15that happened to me today?

05:16And you just write this down as a maximum of two sentences,

05:19and you're kind of imagining,

05:20if I had to tell a five-minute story

05:22about something that happened today, what would that be?

05:24Now, Matthew writes,

05:24not every day contains a storyworthy moment for me,

05:27but I found that the longer I did my homework,

05:29the more days it did contain one.

05:30And my friend Plato has said that I can turn the act

05:32of picking up a pebble from the ground into a great story.

05:35Neither of these statements is true.

05:37The truth is this,

05:38I simply see more storyworthy moments in the day

05:40than most people.

05:41They don't go unnoticed as they once did.

05:43I discovered that there is beauty and import in my life

05:46that I never would have imagined before doing my homework,

05:48and that the small, unexpected moments of beauty

05:50are oftentimes some of my most compelling stories.

05:53And what I love about the Homework for Life strategy,

05:54which admittedly I've been fairly on and off doing

05:56since 2020, since reading the book,

05:57but in the months where I've actually been sticking

05:59to this consistently,

06:00I have found that it's actually increased

06:02my appreciation for life

06:04because now I remember the small details.

06:06If I think back to what I did last week,

06:08I have to look at my calendar.

06:09I'm like, I have no idea what I did last week.

06:10I have no idea what I did last month.

06:11But when I look back through my journal,

06:13I can see, oh, that was the day that this happened.

06:14That was the day that happened.

06:16That's fun, that was a cool thing that happened here

06:17and there and there and there.

06:17And you could take this a step further.

06:19You could talk about what you've learned that day.

06:20You could talk about any new people that you've met.

06:22You could talk about something that surprised you.

06:24But this is a fairly straightforward way

06:25of getting started with journaling.

06:26You just open up a journal.

06:27It can be physical, it can be digital.

06:29You can use an app.

06:30I like the app of day one.

06:31I also like pen and paper journaling.

06:32And you just start writing about a few things

06:34that happened that day.

06:34All right, next we have a strategy from this book,

06:36The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron,

06:38A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity.

06:41It sounds a bit woo,

06:41but this is like such a fantastic book

06:44and like almost every creative person that I've ever met

06:48has read this book and swears by the methods

06:49that Julia Cameron talks about.

06:50But in this book, there's a technique called morning pages,

06:53which you might've come across before.

06:54Basically the idea is that every morning

06:56you just write out three pages by hand,

06:58ideally of just whatever is on your mind.

07:00Now, when I do my morning pages,

07:02I get out my notebook and I start with the phrase,

07:03today is going to be a great day.

07:05If I don't know what else to write,

07:06I'll say it's 1038 on a Monday morning

07:09and I'm sitting on the dining table in the house.

07:11The sun is streaming in and dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

07:15And I'll just start writing.

07:15And I find that on the days that I do this,

07:16A, my mind feels less scattered

07:18because I've taken the time to kind of offload

07:21some of my thoughts onto the page.

07:22And I also come up with really interesting ideas

07:23for videos or for writing or for work.

07:25And it's just taking that 20 minutes in the morning,

07:27sometimes 15 minutes, sometimes less

07:29to just write down some thoughts.

07:30And morning pages is another fantastic way

07:32of getting started with journaling.

07:34You don't have to start with three pages,

07:35it might be a bit much.

07:36You could even start with three lines.

07:37You can start with half a page.

07:38You can start with a whole page.

07:39But the point is that there's all these different ways

07:40of journaling, but the objective of all of it

07:41is to just get thoughts and feelings down on the page

07:44and it doesn't really matter what format that takes.

07:46So that was level one.

07:47Level two of journaling is where you are writing

07:49about how you're feeling.

07:50And there's actually quite a lot of scientific evidence

07:52around these forms of journaling.

07:53And there's two that I want to talk about in particular.

07:55So firstly, have a look at this study from 2015

07:57that was published in the Journal of Social

07:59and Clinical Psychology.

08:00And in this study, the researchers were looking

08:02at the effects of expressive writing,

08:03which is a form of journaling.

08:04So they recruited 70 students

08:06and they randomly chose 35 of them to write expressively

08:09about a past painful event.

08:10And they got the other 35 to write about a neutral topic.

08:13And the really cool thing was that four months later,

08:15they followed the students up

08:16and they found that the students

08:17who were in the expressive writing category,

08:19they seemed to have better mental health

08:20and were less stressed than the students

08:22in the other category who just wrote about a neutral event.

08:24And the theory behind expressive writing

08:25is that if you spend some time just writing

08:27about any kind of painful or negative or traumatic event,

08:30it helps you understand your own thoughts

08:32and feelings about it.

08:33And once you understand your own thoughts

08:34and feelings about it, those thoughts and feelings

08:36are less prone to cause you stress, worry, and anxiety.

08:38Now for the second form of journaling about feelings,

08:40have a look at this 2017 study

08:42that was published in the Journal of Happiness Studies.

08:44And this was a really simple study

08:45where they recruited 91 participants

08:46and they split them into a few different groups.

08:48Now, the first group was the gratitude journaling group

08:50and they were writing about events

08:52or people that they were grateful for.

08:54And then there was a control group

08:55and they were just asked to write about what they did today,

08:57which is basically level one of journaling.

08:58And they were just asked to do this four times in total

09:01across a two week period.

09:02This is not very much time at all.

09:03But then when the researchers followed up a month later,

09:06they found that the people who did just gratitude journaling,

09:08they seem to have higher happiness ratings

09:10and also rated their relationships

09:12with their friends as being stronger

09:13than the people in the control group.

09:14And the theory here is that by journaling

09:16about the things that you're grateful for

09:17and writing them down,

09:18this gratitude journaling helps focus your attention

09:21and appreciation of the good things

09:22that are happening in your life.

09:23And because our subjective experience of life

09:25is so massively coloured by the things

09:27that we pay attention to,

09:28it means that you just end up becoming happier

09:29and just have way better mental health, which is fantastic.

09:31And there was one study that I even read

09:32that showed that five minutes of gratitude journaling

09:35in the morning every day has the same effect

09:37as doubling your salary

09:38if we're looking at the impact on happiness.

09:40Now, there's a few different ways

09:41that you can prompt yourself to do this exercise.

09:43So a really simple one would be

09:44to just pause this video right now

09:45and just imagine what are three things

09:47that you're grateful for?

09:48It can be literally anything you want.

09:49And if you're looking for something

09:50a little bit more in depth,

09:51I really like John Gottman's approach to this.

09:53John Gottman, I interviewed on my podcast,

09:54he's a world famous researcher

09:56in the world of relationships.

09:57And he's got this I appreciate exercise

09:58that apparently really helps

09:59for building closer relationships.

10:01Firstly, you think of someone in your life

10:02that you wanna express gratitude towards,

10:04then you pick three qualities

10:05that characterise this person.

10:06And in the worksheet,

10:07he's got a long list of different qualities

10:09just to make it easier to choose

10:10because sometimes it can be hard

10:11to come up with the right words.

10:12And then you write down the three qualities

10:13that this person displays

10:14and write about a time

10:15in which they displayed that quality.

10:17And so we'll put on screen an example

10:18of what this could look like.

10:19But then the final thing is to be brave

10:21and to actually share what you've written

10:23with the person in question.

10:24And this is where this becomes really powerful

10:26because now it's not just gratitude

10:27that you're doing for your own sake,

10:28but you're also sharing with someone else.

10:30And as you're watching this,

10:32you're probably thinking,

10:33oh my God, that feels cringe.

10:34Like I can't possibly do that.

10:35It feels a bit too much.

10:36But imagine if one of your best friends

10:38were to say to you,

10:39hey, look, whatever your name is.

10:41I was just doing some journaling

10:43and I just wanted to say,

10:43I really appreciate these three qualities about you.

10:45You're thoughtful, you're caring,

10:47and you're very generous.

10:47And here are the ways in which you show those qualities.

10:50And I just wanted to share that with you

10:51because I really appreciate you in my life.

10:52That would feel freaking phenomenal, wouldn't it?

10:54And then finally, we come to level three of journaling,

10:56which is I think the most powerful.

10:58And that is where you journal about what you should do,

11:01what direction you wanna go,

11:02what decisions you wanna make

11:03and what actions you should take in the here and now.

11:04Now there's a few different ways of doing this.

11:06And this is where prompts are particularly powerful.

11:09And one thing I like to do

11:10is collect the most powerful questions

11:11and the most powerful journaling prompts

11:13that I can find across different places.

11:14And I actually put all of these into a single Google Doc

11:16that I always keep up to date.

11:17So if you'd like access to that,

11:18you can click the link down below.

11:19I'll send it to you completely for free.

11:20And then it will be updated

11:21whenever I come across new powerful questions.

11:23So you can check that out if you like.

11:24Okay, so one prompt that you can do

11:26is called the Odyssey Plan.

11:27That's one of my favourite prompts.

11:28I love this.

11:29This is from the book, Designing Your Life.

11:30And basically the idea is that you write down,

11:32what does my life look like five years from now

11:34if I continue down the same path?

11:35And then you journal about that for a bit.

11:37Then you ask yourself,

11:38okay, what does my life look like five years from now

11:40if I take a completely different path?

11:42And you journal about that for a bit.

11:43And then you ask yourself,

11:44what does my life look like five years from now

11:46if I take a completely different path,

11:47but if I'm not worried about money

11:48and I'm not worried about what other people will think of me

11:51and then you journal about that.

11:52It takes a while.

11:53It's a bit intense.

11:54A lot of people are like,

11:55oh, I don't wanna do this because it feels hard.

11:57I don't have time.

11:58But genuinely doing this exercise in 2019

12:01was what fundamentally prompted me to leave medicine.

12:04Option number two,

12:05there is something called the Wheel of Life,

12:06which is basically where you split up life

12:08into like eight, nine, 10 different components

12:10and you just rate how happy you are,

12:11how satisfied you are with your life

12:13across these different domains.

12:14And the idea is you've got your wheel,

12:15you split up your circle

12:16into a bunch of these different categories

12:17and you just rate out of 10,

12:18like if you had to pick a number,

12:20how satisfied are you?

12:21How aligned do you feel

12:22with that particular domain of your life?

12:24And again, this is helpful because the numbers don't lie.

12:25And secondly, you can do this exercise multiple times

12:28throughout the year

12:28and you can see how your numbers change over time.

12:30And generally when you see the numbers,

12:31you're like, oh crap,

12:32I've only got a three out of 10 for like my friends category.

12:35It's probably because I haven't seen my friends enough.

12:37Cool, what can I do to make this go from a three to a five?

12:39And then you take some actions

12:40and this is where journaling becomes very effective

12:42because now the journaling that you're doing

12:44is not just about understanding your thoughts and feelings,

12:46although that's important.

12:47It also then helps you figure out

12:48what actions you can take in the here and now

12:50to make a change.

12:51Another good prompt

12:52is what I call the 12 month celebration.

12:53By the way, I talk about a bunch of these

12:54in my brand new book,

12:55Feel Good Productivity.

12:56It's in the final chapter.

12:57This is a book about how to do more of what matters to you.

12:59So if you're interested,

13:00you can check it out,

13:01link down below, feelgoodproductivity.com,

13:02available in all bookstores.

13:03But another prompt that I really like

13:04is the 12 month celebration,

13:05which is 12 months from now,

13:07in the different components of life,

13:08what would I like to be celebrating with a friend?

13:11For example, I'd like to be celebrating

13:13that for the last 12 months,

13:14I've been hitting the gym consistently three times a week.

13:16I might like to celebrate that I've gotten engaged.

13:17I might like to celebrate

13:18that I started my first business.

13:19I might like to celebrate

13:20that I decided to ask for that raise at work.

13:22And again, by projecting yourself forward,

13:24by asking yourself these questions,

13:25it helps inform what actions you would like to take

13:27in the here and now.

13:28Now, one of my favourite exercises

13:29when it comes to journaling

13:30is Tim Ferriss' fear setting exercise.

13:32Again, all of these prompts

13:33are in the Google Doc link down below

13:34if you wanna check it out.

13:35But I really like the fear setting exercise

13:36because this is fantastic

13:37if I'm worried about doing something.

13:39And so you're asking,

13:40what is the worst thing that will happen

13:41if I do the thing that I fear doing?

13:43What can I do to prevent

13:44each of the worst things from happening?

13:45If the worst case scenario happened,

13:47what can I do to repair it?

13:48What are the benefits of an attempt or partial success?

13:50If I don't do the thing that scares me,

13:51what will my life look like in six months,

13:53one year and three years?

13:54Asking yourself these questions for just 10 minutes

13:57can genuinely be 10 minutes

13:59that completely changes your life.

14:00Because if you decide to do the thing,

14:03to quit the job, to go on that holiday,

14:04to ask that person out,

14:05to propose to that person,

14:06to start that business,

14:07whatever the thing might be,

14:08if you decide to do it,

14:09the decision then dictates your actions,

14:11your actions dictate your results,

14:13and then you'll look back

14:14and you'll think,

14:15damn, that decision completely changed my life.

14:16And so when I say that journaling can change your life,

14:19I'm not being clickbaity about it.

14:21That's not the objective.

14:23Literally, the right decision

14:24can genuinely change the entire course of your life.

14:26There's another strategy

14:27that I've been experimenting with recently,

14:28and that comes from Alex Hormozy,

14:29and he calls it the Solomon Conversation

14:31or something like that.

14:33Basically, the story is about the biblical figure,

14:34I think it was King Solomon,

14:35who was incredible at giving advice to other people,

14:38but his own life was a mess

14:39and he was terrible at taking that advice for himself.

14:41People give significantly better advice

14:43about their own scenarios

14:45if they don't know what's about themselves.

14:46If you only just followed your own advice,

14:48you'd be way better than you currently are.

14:49And so the idea behind Alex's journaling method

14:51is that he has a conversation

14:53with his 85-year-old self

14:54in the form of a Google Doc.

14:56A practice that I started doing,

14:57which is I have a coaching session with myself.

14:59Weird.

15:00I have a conversation with my future self, who's 85,

15:03and I ask him for advice on what I should do now.

15:06And that's been really helpful for helping me realize

15:08that actually, you know, I'm 29 now,

15:10but the things that I'm thinking about and worried about,

15:11just completely meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

15:13And my 85-year-old self is generally telling me

15:15to chill the F out and like enjoy life a little bit more

15:18because, you know, nothing is as serious

15:20as I actually make it out to be in my mind.

15:22And the mind tricks us into believing our own BS,

15:24into thinking that the thing that we are doing

15:25has huge importance and it's very serious.

15:28But actually getting that old dude's perspective

15:30helps us realize, hang on,

15:31it's all about enjoying the journey as we go along.

15:33Now, if you enjoyed this video,

15:34then I'd love for you to leave a comment down below.

15:36What is your favourite journaling prompt?

15:38Or what is a journaling prompt

15:39that you've maybe taken away from this video

15:40that you're gonna start doing in your own life?

15:42Because fundamentally, watching a video like this

15:44is kind of pointless if you're not gonna take action on it.

15:45So I would love for you to share something in the comments

15:47and commit to making some sort of action.

15:49And if you enjoyed this video

15:50and you wanna see the results of my own 90 days in a row

15:52experiment with journaling,

15:53then check out that video over here

15:54where I share my personal experience with journaling

15:56in case you need some more inspiration.

15:57But honestly, the main thing

15:58is to actually try it out for yourself.

16:01So thank you so much for watching

16:02and I'll see you hopefully in the next video.

16:03Bye-bye.

Change Your Life by Journalling in 2024 - Ali Abdaal

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