My name is Dave, and I'm an evocative, transformational life coach. What this means is I help people discover their dream life and help them understand how to move towards it. One of my most useful tools in moving towards my dream life are my journals. I keep a few different ones, some notebooks and others online. The reason I keep both types is, well, I never learned how to write legibly, which means I have a hard time going back to read them.
So, you may ask why bother keeping a notebook if you can't read them? It is all about the physical act of writing will help open up new thoughts. Physically writing for me, is a slow, almost painful process, so it allows me to really think about what I'm writing and the impact of my words on my life. When I type (I'm pretty good at a keyboard), the words flow much faster, allowing me to say a lot without a lot of thought.
Most of the time, when I write in my notebook, I’ll just let it sit there. Sometimes, if I think what I wrote and learned, is really important, I’ll transcribe the notebook to my online journal. The rest of the time, I’ll take what I’ve learned and create a new journal entry in my online journal.
So now, that I’ve shared my process, how does this make me the best I can be? This question is a straightforward question to answer, but it may take a lot of words.
First, my morning pages, they have four sections: "I am grateful for…," "I am proud of…," "What would make today great?" and finally "Daily affirmations." The first two sections are easy to explain, I list 3 or more things I feel grateful for, one usually being "I'm grateful for my life, which is truly blessed." The proud section I list 2 or more things I did the previous few days that I feel proud of, which is a fantastic mental boost.
Now, the "What would make today great" section helps me plan two or three tasks that I feel are the critical tasks for the day. I usually start this section by changing the words to "Today will be great because…" and that little change has a massive impact on my subconscious mind; it is telling me that these tasks will make the day great and that I have to get them done.
The last section on affirmations is where I will list 3 or more positive statements. These don't change very often, and the act of repeating them daily helps the Universe (or Source, God or Goddess) see what I'm really wanting.
Another part of my journal practice is “Night Notes.” I have a template for this page that includes two sections. The first is a list of “3 amazing things that happened today…" This section is a pretty straight forward section. The important part to note for this list, they may not have to be things that I did, but events that happened around me (such as being asked to write a guest blog). If it is something I did that was really amazing, it will probably go into the next morning’s “proud” section.
The other part is a reflection back on the day with the prompt, "How could I have made today even better?" Again, it's a pretty straight forward prompt, but it focuses on me, not what others did or didn't do, only what I control. This entry probably takes the most time and thought on my daily pages, and I try to be as honest as I can be. Some of the things I've written in the past are:
I am trying to work on adding the "why" into the "I should have…," which will require even more thought and introspection.
I believe these two pages help make me the best I can be and when I add other journal entries into the mix, that elevates my vibration to the next level which allows the Universe help move me to the next level!
Dave DeCoursey is the Chief Inspiration Officer at Retirement Dream Life. He is a
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