Looking to actually achieve your goals? Need a journal to get you there?
Then buckle up as we explore your very own journal for goals!
Why Might You Use a Goal Journal?
Any naysayers in the crowd better prepare to have their minds well and truly changed over the course of these three reasons why you might go about using a goal journal.
1. Perspective
A journal for goals is a great way to gain some semblance of perspective on yourself, both in your life and in your relationship to your goals. If you aren't already in the loop, goal setting is a great way to enhance your personal development and head in a certain direction in life.
A goal journal is best when used regularly so that you can see the results of your successes as well as where you might like to improve a little more. In this way, a goal-oriented person would do their best to get their own goal journal.
Working much like a vision board, such a journal is a one-way ticket toward your very own dream life, heling you to get a sense of what you want out of your life as well as to help you make note of these goals and head toward them in the most economical way.
2. Progress
One of the key detractors against the performance of one's day-to-day tasks and personal growth is an inability to fully see the progress one is making. Gaining some perspective on that can be a great way to then look back and see the progress that is not only being made through the use of scientific strategies but also to look back on the various successes one has made over a certain time and commend oneself for it.
This is where a goal-setting journal excels the most, allowing a more objective way of ascertaining how much progress you have made toward your goals. It can be easy to get caught up in subjective action of things and then to miss just how much progress we have made toward our goals. A goal planner like this is the best thing you can do to help you stay motivated and in the game of achieving your goals.
In order to truly ascertain your progress, you are best advised to set goals and then file them into further categories that pertain to the length of time which you will be using to enact them. Time management is key here and you should set realistic short-term and long-term goals for yourself.
3. Being Realistic
Which, as a matter of fact, brings us onto an apposite and relevant point. Another thing that deters many people from achieving their overarching goals is the way that we can often be put off when our initial attempts to achieve these goals come up fruitless or otherwise unsuccessful.
In such instances, it is important to remember that not all goals are achieved immediately or, indeed, upon first try. Thus, it is important to reconcile your primary goals with the reality of the situation and to understand that just as you might one day make progress toward your goals, on other days you might take a step back and that's okay.
One important thing you can do for your mental health is to accept that you are not always going to be making progress toward your goals. Sometimes you might in fact be taking a step back, and that's more than okay for it is precisely in these backward steps that we can learn a whole bunch about ourselves.
By being realistic and kind to yourself all the while, you are better able to serve yourself in the future. No doubt it will do wonders for your self-esteem.
Some Journals You Can Try
So, now we have a better understanding of what journals can do for keeping goals and self-improvement, let's look at a few real-world examples you might use to get the job done.
1. Go Journal by Go Journal
Designed with the busy professional in mind, this journal is abundant with monthly spreads to help you fully flesh out your goals, both in the business and leisure realm.
Only requiring ten minutes of your time a day, this journal is also great for those who don't know which specific type of journaling they want to use to achieve their goals. Yes, this journal takes a more panoramic approach to provide a canvas for journaling, offering sections on gratitude journaling, personal development, dreaming big, and living well.
If your idea of goal journals is a style of book that is designed to help you balance your career goals with your personal pleasures, then you are going to find yourself delighted with the Go Journal. The clue is, after all, in the name. This is a journal for those who want to simply get up and go!
2. Panda Planner by Panda Planner
Though it is important not to value some opinions above others, it is hard to ignore the weight that Business Insider carries when assessing the veritable value of such things. This publication has made it known that they fully support the use of the Panda Planner - in fact, they named it the best planner you can possibly buy. However hard we may try, it is difficult to take such an endorsement lightly, especially for anyone in the know about such things.
Like the Go Journal, the Panda Planner seeks to divide and conquer among all of the various types of journals out there, supping from their cups and offering forth a blend of all the different types. Indeed, this is a book that is part agenda journal, part gratitude journal, part journal planner, part scheduling piece, part goal planner, and part life organizer, all the while boosting productivity by innumerable degrees.
Of course, if that doesn't leave you entirely sated, then rest assured that you will soon be burping up satisfaction after consuming the extra content that this journal offers every user. Indeed, this journal comes with several free videos and scientific strategies about how to be the most productive you can be.
3. The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll
Taking on the mantle of the bullet journal, Ryder Carroll seeks to design a journal that helps to keep track of the past, order the present, and ultimately design the future. The ultimate mission here is to help eradicate distractions ensuring that you can keep calm and stay focused on the things that matter, both during work and in your own leisure hours.
More than anything, this journal is about learning to live intentionally, following the example of those who work and play thoughtfully and avoid the ever-burgeoning distractions of the technological world. Scrolling endlessly without agency is a very real thing and it afflicts more people than ever before. A bullet journal such as this is a perfect way to engage with that inbuilt need for distraction and to begin a life where you attempt to rid yourself of it.
If you have heard anything about journaling, then you will no doubt already be familiar with the bullet method. This is, however, where it all began. Ryder Carroll is the originator of the bullet method and has been reaping the rewards ever since putting his method out into the world for all of its denizens to see.
4. The Daily Stoic Journal by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman
Those looking to keep their goal-tracking up for every single day of the year might be attracted to the Daily Stoic Journal, a journal that features 366 days of writing exercises that help you to reflect on the art of living.
This journal is an extension of stoic philosophy, a mode of thinking that has been around for millennia, still evidently attracting attention and notoriety for its ability to fuel wise leads, creative thinkers, talented artists, and skilled athletes.
Stoicism is one of the four major schools of thought established in the Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece, advocating a sincere practicing of virtue in order to achieve a well-lived and altogether flourishing life. By practicing certain virtues on a regular basis, stoics believe that it is possible to encourage courage and good temperament in accordance with the flow of nature. Stoicism flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century AD, and among its adherents was Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself.
Where other journals simply seek to impress their own mode of thinking directly onto you, this journal is perfectly happy to provide you space within which to add your own goals and take plenty of notes.
5. The 5-Second Journal by Mel Robbins
Best-selling author of The 5-Second Rule, Mel Robbins, takes another step into becoming a household name among the desperate by using the same research-supported approach to enable people to take action and get results, ultimately living a more courageous life overall.
If you are the kind of person who is often overwhelmed by the most mundane things, then perhaps you have found a new journal to buy and never use! If you are often worrying about your productivity and that you might not be acting as productively as you could be, then this journal is a great way to assess whether or not you are or not!
Are you lacking in confidence in your business and leisure lives and need a journal to help you keep the balance between the two while also helping you boost your confidence and comfort in both areas? Then this journal is surely for you! Are you always struggling to find the version of yourself that you think is the best? Then, perhaps you better pick up this journal and give it a good once over just to make sure you haven't missed anything!
6. The Freedom Journal by John Lee Dumas
John Lee Dumas is mostly famous for his podcast, though it is precisely through this podcast that he was able to calculate the specific formula that we find in The Freedom Journal. Through the many thousands of interviews that he has conducted through his podcast, Dumas noticed some similarities between successful entrepreneurs and the way that each of them operates their business and personal lives.
Taking the science of these similarities and combining them with the study of accomplishing goals, Dumas created what we now know as the Freedom Journal which boasts the ability to help you accomplish your most sought after and desirable goal within 100 days. This is no easy feat, of course, but Dumas is so certain of this journal's success that he is willing to put his reputation on the line for it.
The thing to consider with this journal is that it is best when used to accomplish one specific goal, so if you are looking to focus on a whole bunch of different goals simultaneously, then you would be best advised to use one of the previous bunch of journals aforementioned.
Final Words
So, there you have it! Hopefully, you are now feeling ready and able to get started!
FAQs Journal for Goals
HOW DO I JOURNAL MY GOALS?
The best thing you can do to start journaling your goals is to sort them into a list of long and short-term goals. Prioritizing them in this way is a great way to ensure you are focusing on the more pressing ones first.
HOW DO I MAKE MY OWN GOAL JOURNAL?
To make your own goal journal, all you need is a journal that you can write in. The rest is relatively straightforward.
WHY DO YOU NEED A GOAL JOURNAL?
No one needs anything necessarily, though a goal journal is great if you are looking to achieve your goals.
