Why keeping a 100 Day Journal is the secret to reaching your GOAL

I’d really like you to keep a Journal for your next 100 Day Goal. It’s a simple little thing to do and it’ll whiz you towards your 100 Day Goal with no extra effort.

Like. REALLY!

 

You might be thinking the journal thing sounds a bit woo woo. But there’s actually a ton of science behind it.  Based on the psychology of ‘achievement’, a bit of neuroscience and some stuff about how the brain works, there are many simple techniques and tools which can make reaching your 100 Day Goal much, much easier. As much as possible, I’ve incorporated these into the 100 Day Goal Journal (and you can learn about others in the 100 Day Goal BOOST)

The hard thing about the 100 Day Goal

The 100 Day Goal is a super-simple concept. But that doesn’t make it easy. If you’ve done the 100 Day Goal before, you’ll know that:

1. It can be hard to find the energy and motivation to do (at least) one Microaction every day
2. It can be hard to work out what Microactions to do!

But keeping a journal can help with both of these!

How the 100 Day Journal helps with your energy and motivation

Writing daily in your 100 Day Goal Journal helps keep your energy and motivation up because:

1.It keeps you accountable. When you know you need to write down what you did, you make sure you do it! Really. You’ll want to have things to write down!

2.It works like a ‘Don’t’ Break The Chain’. Once you’ve kept your 100 Day Goal Journal for a few days you won’t want to ‘break the chain’ of having written in it. Empty pages in your journal will stick out like a sore thumb.

3.It kick starts the Halo effect. Every time you write down your ‘wins’ (your progress towards your goal) your brain sends a dose of the success hormone Dopamine around your body. Dopamine feels good, so our bodies want more of it, and, in a nutshell,  that’s why we feel a surge of energy and desire to work harder (called the Halo effect) when we record a success!

4.You won’t want to waste it. If you invest in a nice journal you won’t want to waste it by only writing in it a couple of days, and this simple little thought will keep you doing Microactions. I know: sometimes the secret to keeping-on-going is as simple as that!

How the 100 Day Journal helps you find good Microactions to do!

Now this is the more sciency bit, so stick with me for a minute.

Our subconscious brain is the most powerful, yet most under-used tool, we have available to crack our 100 Day Goal.  

When we give it the right information, our subconscious spots opportunities that our conscious brain misses, see patterns that we don’t notice and synthesises a ton of data to come up with amazing ideas for us!

Kinda like our very own internal computer.

But our subconscious brain doesn’t do any of this, unless we TUNE IT IN!

Our subconscious is a very busy beast! It gets bombarded with over 11million bits of info a second. It’s drowning in data. So rather than try and process it all, it doesn’t bother. Instead it has a very effective filter system (the Reticular Activation System*) and it rejects any info that it doesn’t consider useful. The majority of the info your subconscious receives never makes it inside!

So we want our subconscious brain to help us with our 100 Day Goal (and come up with good ideas for us) but we  need to let it know that our 100 Day Goal is important.

And how do we do this?

By telling our subconscious our goal simply and often!

So back to how the 100 Day Goal Journal helps us to find good microactions. It’s because:

1.When we write our goal down every day (as I suggest!) we TUNE our subconscious in. And when it’s tuned in it comes up with amazing ideas (Like magic! Really – you have to trust me on this one!)

2.When we complete our Journal at night it reminds our subconscious to work on our goal while we sleep. Our brain uses sleep cycles to work through problems, it’s called Dream Learning, and it’s a THING! Our brains solve problems and come up with the best ideas while we sleep.

3.When we re-read earlier entries in our Journal it gives our subconscious more data to work on – and that in turn helps our subconscious come up with better ideas for us.  

(*An example of the  Reticular Activation System at work is when you decide you wanted to buy a certain car, and then you start seeing cars everywhere like the one you want!.)

Got a minute? Quick video on why keeping a 100 Day Goal Journal is a MUST

I chat about some of the benefits of doing the 100 Day Goal in this BOOST video  (I’ve temporarily changed the settings on this so you can see it! )

How to start your 100 Day Goal Journal

I’ve got Hard Copy 100 Day Goal Journals printed specifically for the 100 Day Goal so the layout is all there, you just have to fill it in (plus it’s got a goal tracker, don’t break the chain, 10 day sprints, reflections, quotes and is just GORGEOUS). And I got them made because I couldn’t find anything else which did the job! But do feel free to make your own Journal if you fancy!

There are instructions in the 100 Day Goal Workbook (Free! Sign up here to get it!) but as a minimum, you need:

1. A notebook with at least 100 Pages
2. Number the pages 1-100
3. Each day write your goal at the top of the page
4. Each day write the Microactions you’ve done
5. Each day write the progress you made that day
6. Each day write the progress you’ve made since day One

I’d love you to have  a cracking 100 Day Goal, so keep a 100 Day Goal Journal. It’s the two minutes a day task that pays you back by the bucketload!

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