A success diary is a powerful tool in your hands for achieving goals and overcoming difficulties. By recording your achievements and events that evoke positive emotions, you can speed up your progress towards your goals. Let's talk about how to properly keep a success diary, look at a few examples, and why everyone should make these entries.
What is a success diary
Many people note that their lives are filled with a variety of daily tasks. However, at the same time, they do not move anywhere, as if they freeze at one point without the slightest personal growth and progress. And all this happens because they are focusing on the wrong things. The human mind tends to concentrate and retain in memory negative events rather than positive ones.
Successful people have developed the habit of keeping a daily success diary - recording their achievements and positive situations. And all because they noticed: this activity consolidates and increases their achievements, helps them remember good events and pleasant moments. In difficult times, a diary of successes and achievements helps strengthen the spirit, analyze an unpleasant situation and find ways to resolve it.
The success diary is an ordinary notebook, notebook or diary (you can keep notes in electronic form). In it you note your successes at work or in school, positive emotions, compliments from friends and positive assessments from colleagues, pleasant meetings - that is, everything that lifts your spirits and brings you closer to achieving your goals.
Important! Learn to enjoy even small victories, and not just celebrate great achievements. Happiness is built from small joys. Small victories are the building blocks of great success.
Make it a rule to make at least 5 entries daily. Write down all the positive things your day has brought you: you read a book, went to the park with your children, did morning exercises (or went for a run), refused a portion of fast food, etc. Record everything you have done to become better, feel healthier and more successful.
On the pages of the diary you can write down motivational phrases, affirmations, quotes from famous people, and your revelations. This will prevent them from leaking out of your consciousness and will keep you on the right wavelength.
Finding inspiring moments to write down in your success journal is not difficult. But many people abandon this activity, believing that it does not make sense or they do not have time for it. “Everything that is ingenious is simple, and everything that is simple is brilliant.” Don't be fooled by the simplicity of the activity, there are many benefits to keeping a success diary.
What is the secret of this technique
Everyone knows the popular wisdom: “If you don’t praise yourself, no one will.”
Finding moments and events in life that can be recorded in a diary of success and achievements is not at all difficult. But many don’t even start, citing lack of time and that it won’t help the matter.
“Everything that is ingenious is simple, and everything that is simple is brilliant.”
Think about it, there is a deep meaning in this that people cannot always consider. Many people are alarmed by the simplicity of the activity. But an achievement diary has many advantages. There are two main components in it:
- Rational , it helps you see your progress over a certain period of time.
- Emotional , it helps to raise positive emotions to the surface, which again excite and inspire to move on to new achievements.
Benefits of Keeping a Success Diary
By filling out a success diary every day, you will quietly develop a lot of useful qualities that distinguish a successful, harmonious and happy person:
- The ability to think positively is a very valuable skill. Positive thoughts will displace negative ones and erase destructive attitudes that could have been embedded in the subconscious in childhood. This will not only lead to the fact that negative moments will disappear from your life, you will begin to feel more confident and filled with happiness.
- Confidence and self-esteem comes with the awareness of your success. Increasing self-esteem is necessary, since most people have incorrect attitudes about themselves and their abilities. Particularly destructive to a person is grief over one’s insignificant (from a subjective point of view) successes compared to others. A success diary will help you get rid of the bad habit of comparing yourself to others and teach you to concentrate on the steps to achieve your goals.
- Internal motivation is the most stable force that can move us towards the realization of desires. Inspiration cannot be constant; sooner or later it evaporates and then the moment of decline occurs. When despondency, apathy sets in and the desire to do anything disappears, your entries in your success diary awaken internal motivation. You will realize how far you have already come, and you will have the strength to move on.
- High self-esteem, self-respect, the presence of internal motivation - all these new qualities change you as a person and correct your worldview. You have a different attitude towards life, your surroundings, the events that happen to you. Look at all situations through the prism of positive emotions and expectations. Even in failures you see opportunities for growth. This helps us move forward where we previously gave up or gave up. As a result, you become a winner. Now you control the circumstances, and not they control you.
- Keeping a journal of successes and achievements, in which you focus exclusively on your strengths, achievements, skills and abilities, helps to attract even more successes and successful accomplishments to you. After all, we attract what we focus on.
Another advantage of keeping a success diary is organization: at first you force yourself to write notes every day, and then it becomes a habit. A skill such as organization is useful in any field. It makes getting rid of laziness much easier.
If you are depressed, lack self-confidence and have a tendency to self-blame, be sure to start keeping a success journal. No matter where you are in your life, you can qualitatively change your life for the better. The main thing is to tune your brain to the right wavelength.
How does psychology explain this?
Psychologists say that our brain is designed in such a way that we remember for a long time the bad things that happened to us, and quickly forget about all the good things. Regular entries in the Diary will help you notice that there is much more good in life.
Also, keeping records will help increase your self-esteem if you train yourself to write down everything, even minor successes. This is very important for people who lack self-confidence.
Having read about such a Diary, many begin to grin: why should I thank fate?
Indeed, we are accustomed to taking everything for granted. We often focus only on difficulties. We do not notice those people around whom fate sends more difficult trials.
First we have to look for those moments for which we can thank fate. Everyone starts with the global: they thank you for life, for healthy children, for a roof over your head, for work. Then people begin to pay attention to those moments for which they can also be grateful.
Psychologists believe that the use of such practice on a subconscious level gives a person the attitude that the task must be performed as best as possible.
We begin to notice all the little things we can be grateful for. Gradually the attitude towards life changes. After all, we learn to notice the good that surrounds us and gratefully accept what fate gives us.
Recording Success: A Practical Exercise
How to start keeping a success diary? Write down your first 10 merits (skills, skills, talents) that you think will help you achieve your goals. Here are some examples of positive statements depending on your goals:
- If you want to get a highly paid job, list your qualities and skills in your diary: “I communicate well with people,” “I am an attentive listener,” “I am committed, executive and organized,” “I always do more than is expected of me,” “I have excellent persuasion skills,” “I dress stylishly and look attractive,” etc.
- If you're looking to get into a relationship or start a family, write down all your talents: “I'm confident and always make a positive impression,” “I'm caring and considerate,” “I have a great sense of humor,” “People enjoy hanging out with me.” , “I am an excellent housewife”, “People around me are crazy about my charisma”, “My last boyfriend always said that I have very beautiful and expressive eyes”, “Girls always say that I have an athletic figure and an attractive nature”, etc. .d.
You will always find something to praise yourself for. Look at yourself in the mirror without focusing on what you don't like about your appearance. Find what you like. Remember the compliments of friends and colleagues. Praise from partners and bosses. Without hesitation, acknowledge your merits and write them down on paper.
Why is it effective?
Even the smallest achievements in your opinion activate the part of the brain that is responsible for reward. At this moment, the body begins to release chemical compounds - hormones, which give us feelings of happiness and pride in ourselves.
What happens if you record your achievements every day?
By writing down your progress every day, you'll begin to notice all the positive things that don't usually stick in your mind. One of the qualities of human thinking is focusing on the negative. We tend to mentally replay unpleasant memories in our heads over and over again. But reconfiguring your thinking and constantly searching for the positive will reveal to you that life, it turns out, has more positive moments.
By writing down everything, even the most insignificant achievements, you will raise your self-esteem and learn to find positive things even in mistakes and troubles. After all, thanks to failures we gain invaluable experience.
What is the best thing to write down?
You keep a diary for yourself, because there are no restrictions on what you write there. Desires come true, pleasant moments that lifted your spirits, compliments, even a great time spent in idleness - write everything that gives you pleasant feelings. For example, you overcame some of your complexes, learned something new, signed up for a gym, increased your profits, forgave your offender, helped your neighbor, left your comfort zone, prepared a new dish.
In your diary, thank people who have done something good for you, thank yourself for being such a great person. Let this be a diary of success and gratitude - it will help you become not only more confident in yourself, but also friendlier, and will attract new interesting people into your circle.
Success Diary Template
If you still don’t know how to keep a success diary, where to start, you can take this example as an example:
Template in Google Sheet Gradually, you will become comfortable in recognizing your merits and will be able to easily notice the positive moments in life, without relying on any success diary templates.
A little history or how a diary helps deal with stress
An interesting fact: at the moment, about six thousand personal diaries of people, famous and not so famous, written from the mid-8th century to the present day, are presented in the public sphere. And 450 of them are diaries kept by residents of besieged Leningrad. For many of them, the diary became a kind of antidepressant in conditions of constant danger and uncertainty.
To be fair, let us clarify that the recommendations to keep a diary were voiced by the leaders of the besieged city. Was this done out of concern for the mental health of the townspeople, or out of a desire to preserve as much evidence as possible of a truly unique historical situation for future research? In any case, this practice has borne fruit in both directions.
Psychologists have long recommended pouring out your thoughts and experiences on paper for a variety of reasons. This helps, firstly, to more clearly formulate your thoughts and understand yourself, your true desires and aspirations. Secondly, by sharing emotions with paper, a person relieves himself of a significant amount of stress, which is good for health. However, the functions of the diary are not limited to this.
How to start keeping a success diary
Buy a nice notebook or notebook with a lot of pages. Write “Success Diary” or “Journal of My Achievements” on it. You can even paste your photo - this will make the diary even more personal.
It will be good if at the very beginning you describe your motivations, why you started keeping a success diary, and what goals you want to achieve. You can also record achievements electronically by creating a digital diary. The main thing is to start without delay, right today, without waiting for some global events that can be recorded first in the journal.
Summarize your results for the week, month and year. Choose your top 5 accomplishments for the week, then the month, and then the year. You will again feel pleasant emotions from previously experienced successes and will be surprised at how much you have already been able to accomplish.
Rules for keeping a diary
Stock up on multi-colored markers, pens, and pencils with which you will highlight and mark achievements that are especially important to you. Make your journal colorful so that you enjoy holding it in your hands and looking at it. To get the most out of keeping a diary, follow these rules:
- Make notes daily, otherwise you will not make progress. By recording achievements once every 3-4 days, you will miss many positive moments; they will simply be “erased” from your memory. And such irregular feeding will not be enough for the brain, so you will not feel any progress either in your attitude or in life.
- Write down your progress in the evening before bed or throughout the day. The second option is even more preferable, because this way you won’t miss a single positive moment.
- Carry a small notebook with you so you can take notes wherever you go. Thanks to this, you can immediately enter into it an idea or a goal that has arisen in your mind. In the evening, you will simply rewrite these entries in your success diary.
- Don't keep your achievement notebook in plain sight, keep your notes private.
- The minimum number of entries is 5 per day. Gradually, you will begin to record more and more successful cases. Structure them, highlight the most important and important things in color - this will improve perception.
You can divide the areas of life into separate categories: “family”, “health”, “career”, “habits”. This way you will see which area lacks your attention, and you will be able to develop it more fully.
6 more rules for effective and safe psychological recording
- Write regularly. Better 5 minutes, but every day, than an hour, but once a week.
- Write in a notebook that appeals to you visually. Let your writing practice be associated with something pleasant.
- Write in a comfortable place where there is no one or nothing to distract you.
- Periodically re-read your notes and conduct self-analysis: what continues to bother you and why, what do you want to change?
- Be sincere. Don't hide anything from yourself.
- Remember that paper will endure anything - throw out your emotions completely.
