Journaling - Weights for your brain
Trapping thoughts, focus on what matters with questions, and training your mental fitness
**Note - I want to thank everyone for reaching out to share their experiences and feedback on the newsletter. It was AMAZING to hear what you all thought and in many cases how it related to something you were working through in your life. It was cool to see that the Ikigai and (finding) ***meaning in work was something a lot of people were working through and I want to thank everyone that felt comfortable sharing that and talking about it out loud. It was dope.
Journaling is a practice to help you live well 🛀🏽
There’s simply no better way to learn about your thought processes than to write them down - Barbara Markway
Exercising your mind is a key component of living well and journaling is a great first step.
I picked up journaling earlier this year and thought I was going to hate it. The idea of writing something down every day that was not taking notes or a to-do list seemed trivial. Plus, I had no idea what to write about and I knew there was very little chance I was going to revisit my journal after I had written something down.
What Pushed Me To Pick Up Journaling
The reason I picked up journaling is because I was not happy at the end of last year (we'll get to this in a later post). As someone that has always paid attention to what I eat and my exercise habits, I had made the mistake of not paying attention to my mind and my mental fitness.
What Is Mental Fitness 🧠
First off, you're probably thinking what the hell is mental fitness? There are a couple of different ways to slice it but mental fitness is defined as
A state of well-being and having a positive sense of how we feel, think, and act.
When you are physically fit, your body has the ability to perform physical activities well (hiking, running, walking) and your body is overall more healthy (less weight, lower risk of disease, more energy, etc).
When you are mentally fit you experience a greater sense of well-being more often, have strong coping mechanisms to deal with a variety of emotions and experiences, and can better form and cultivate healthy relationships.
It's A Regular Practice
Mental fitness, I've learned, is an ongoing practice. The same way you can't eat a salad one time and be healthy forever, mental fitness is a regular practice to keep your mind strong and give you a greater sense of well-being.
How Journaling Helped With My Mental Fitness 📝
More Positive Emotion - Increased levels of gratitude, optimism, fulfillment, and self confidence, as well as a general improvement in my mood.
Greater Self-Awareness - More clarity around how I felt moment to moment and a clearer sense of how events and interactions impacted me and why they impacted me that way.
Greater Degree of Calm & Focus - Lower levels of anxiety and stress. More present in day to day, less time ruminating, and more stable mood, which meant I was distracted less often.
Stronger Connectedness - Greater sense of well-being led to greater friendliness, more openness, and as a result a higher likelihood of engaging in a positive way with others, which led to more more and deeper connections with others.
Stronger Retention - Retained learnings more strongly and had a better sense of what I learned from different interactions and experiences.
What Journaling Is Not
This is not a magic bullet - This will not instantly make you an enlightened spiritual buddha. For me, it did not solve everything, but it did meaningfully move the needle with how I felt across those different areas.
The benefits are not realized immediately - Journaling is exercise not a pill. It takes time to realize the benefits, similar to how it takes time to see changes when you start working out.
One goal of this newsletter is to provide you with an arsenal of strategies, exercises, and practices that you can have at your disposal to live well. This is one of them. Next I will dive into two forms of journaling I'd recommend trying
#1 - The Brain Dump: Clear Your Mind 🤯
When I discover who I am, I'll be free - Ralph Ellison
The brain dump (also known as expressive or therapeutic journaling) is about self-knowledge. It involves trapping thoughts on paper to clear your mind, work through things that are bothering you, and process events and interactions with others. Its a favorite tactic of mine to start my day.
How Do You Brain Dump?
It's simple - just write for 5-10 minutes. About what you might ask? Here are some ideas to get you started:
Your Worries and To Do's - Whatever is bothering you or that you have been ruminating on
How You Feel or Felt - How you feel now & how events in your life made you feel and why
Anything Else - Whatever swirl of thoughts are currently occupying space in your head
It's weird at first, but as you start putting pen to paper, more and more comes out. I start by opening up a blank page on Notion and I write every thing that comes to mind.
*The Brain Dump At Night - Doing a brain dump at night is fantastic for anyone that struggles with falling asleep and has an active mind before bed. It helps by getting your worries and to' do’s onto the page so you feel like you've dealt with them. Journaling has been shown to help people fall asleep more easily and improve sleep quality, so if you struggle here it might be worth a shot! (source 1, source 2).
An Example Brain Dump
Today my brain is feeling particularly active. What's going on? Maybe its because I have not heard back from XX? Yeah, that is kind of annoying. You know what though? I have no idea what's going on. Maybe they have covid or maybe the business is going through rough times. Or they could be ghosting? I don’t know so I'd rather assume the best, the other thought will just bring me bad energy.
What else? What about life stuff? What about it? Oh! Need to call the coronavirus humans at Northwell and ask when we should get tested. Need to schedule two. Call AA and check when we can book. Epic.
How The Brain Dump Helps
Most of my brain dump is incoherent. The goal is to get the swirl of thoughts out of my head and onto the page where I can wrestle with them. This helps me do a couple of things:
Clarify & Better Understand My Thinking - Understand why my mind is active and work through my thoughts to better understand them.
Ex. I'll have had a conversation that bothered me and writing down why I felt that way helps me process what happened to gain better understanding and move forward.
Greater Awareness of What Is Occupying My Mind - Flush out what I'm thinking by writing out my stream of consciousness.
Ex. When I write "life stuff" that was me feeling I was missing something important. The brain dump helps me surface thoughts so I can deal with them and move on.
Move Forward - It helps me move into my day with a clear head, which means I am more present, more focused, and overall enjoy myself more.
This simple exercise has been wildly helpful for giving me a running start into my day. I started by doing this daily, but now do this as needed when my mind feels particularly busy.
#2- Questions To Win Your Day: Focusing Your Mind 🧐
Quality questions create a quality life. [When] people ask better questions, they get better answers. – Tony Robbins (w/ a slight edit by Alvaro)
My favorite journaling tactic is to ask myself a series of questions every morning.
The power of our brain is extraordinary and questions allow us to send our mind in any direction we want it to go. As a result, its incredibly helpful to spend time thinking about what are the right questions to ask. The questions I ask myself in the morning are geared around three goals:
🧘🏽♂️ Improve my well-being 🧘🏽♂️
⚡️Increase energy & confidence ⚡️
🕵🏼♂️ Focus on what matters and what is true 🕵🏼♂️
My Morning Questions
What Am I Excited About - Reminds me of all the things I am looking forward to.
What Am I Happy About - Reminds me of all the things that are bringing me joy.
What Am I Grateful For - Reminds me of all that is awesome in my life
What Am I Proud Of - My mini hype session for myself in the morning. This is rocket fuel for confidence, optimism, and tackling any challenges you have that day.
Who Loves Me and Who Do I Love - Focuses my attention on the relationships in my life and gives me a feeling of connectedness. It also nudges me to connect more with my loved ones.
What Am I Committed To - My medium term (6-12 month) goals and a constant reminder of what I am driving towards. This helps cultivate a greater sense of purpose in my life.
What Will I Do To Make Today Great - My daily goals. I keep it at max 3, which helps with focus
The Details In Your Questions Matter
Gratitude - has improved my day to day an insane amount. In an achievement oriented culture, a consistent gratitude practice is an amazing way to create a greater sense of well-being.
Will Make Today Great - Is a critical detail to the daily goals questions. This focuses me on what I can accomplish to feel great about my day and helps combat the never ending "to-do" anxiety.
An Example of My Morning Questions
What Am I Excited About - I am excited about my interview with the XX and continuing with YY as well as my convos with AA and ZZ next week. I am excited about going to Dallas w/ the family for the holidays. I am fired up about Baja w/ Dad Brazil w/ Mom.
What Am I Happy About - I am happy about my coffee and my empanada.
What Am I Grateful For - I am grateful I am alive, well, and healthy. I am grateful my wife got an amazing opportunity. I am grateful I have an amazing wife. I am grateful I have this beautiful home. I am grateful my parents love and support me. I am grateful for clarity around truth (grateful for this realization). I am grateful for dogs. I am grateful for Frank's energy.
What Am I Proud Of - I am proud of my meditation practice. I am proud of my physical fitness and my commitment to my overall health. I am proud of my relentlessness. I am proud of my increased levels of presence and awareness in my day to day. I am proud of my heightened levels of curiosity, diminished levels of defensiveness, and the drop in moments where I feel angry, anxious, stressed, etc. I am proud of all the love I show my wife. I am proud of my improved cleaning.
Who Loves Me and Who Do I Love - My wife, my dad, my mom, alejandro, my in-laws, my friends :)
What Am I Committed To - Getting an opportunity with a venture studio or a health & wellness startup. I am committed to building the financial engine. I am committed to selling a small portion of my equity. I am committed to learning what mental fitness is and how you can exercise it regularly and measurably improve it.
What Will I Do To Make Today Great - Crush XX. Wednesday Outreach Plan.
Nighttime Practice & Additional Questions 😴
Like the brain dump, you may find it useful to ask questions before going to bed. You might do this if you prefer journaling at night or you prefer an approach where you can reflect on how your day went. Here are some examples questions:
What Did I Do Well Today - For anyone looking to build self-confidence, building reference points of times you did something particularly well is a good practice to do so.
What Did I Learn Today - This is particularly useful as a means of cementing any learnings or discovering whether the things you did today were a good use of time.
What Were Three Amazing Things That Happened Today - This is another gratitude practice and a good chance to reflect on what went well todays
Additional Journaling Questions To Try
What Is One Thing I Can Do (Did) To Bring Myself Joy Today?
What Is One Thing I Can Do (Did) To Bring Someone Else Joy Today?
What Have I Been Putting Off That I Will Do (Did) Today?
What Can I Forgive Myself For?
The takeaway here is that questions are powerful tools to focus the mind. And what the mind spends time thinking about affects how you feel and in turn how you act.
Adopting Journaling To Fit Your Needs
Journaling should be adapted to your goals and lifestyle. Much like some people prefer going for a run and others prefer going to SoulCycle there is no one size fits all, but the takeaway is that journaling is a good exercise for the mind and can help you live better today.
For those that are looking for advice on how to start journaling, how to make it work best for your goals and routine, or what app/journal to use please don't hesitate to reach out!
I hope this post inspired you to adopt journaling and I am fired up to hear about your experiences!
Feedback Time 😁 - Share Your Thoughts & Journals!
Would love your feedback (two questions only!) so I can better tailor this newsletter to you all in the future → Feedback Form
Lastly, if you enjoyed this newsletter you can use the link at the bottom to easily share it with others that you think would like it as well.
To Living Well,
Alvaro
Weekly Live Well Recs
Read of the week 📖: The Path To Peace is Truth by Naval Ravikant
Listen of the week 🎧: Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven (I've been on a kick, its good)
Product(s) of the week 🍯: Five Minute Journal and Notion