Motivate Yourself and Clear Your Mental Landscape with a Diary

Staying motivated, for the most part, is a matter of character, but there are a few external elements that could help empower, motivate and inspire you to stay focused on your goals. One of those ways is keeping a diary. Not everyone has to be “too much of a writer” to note their thoughts and intentions down. After all, who’s reading it? Your diary is your canvas of thoughts, feelings, and ideas – no matter how silly or unsound, if it makes sense, you are good to go.

Here’s how keeping a diary can help you stay motivated:

It Gives You a Clear Image of Your Goals for the Day

Writing things down gives you focus. With a clear perspective on what you want to do in the day, you’ll stay motivated and won’t get lost in all the things you’d told yourself to do. Instead, you were smart – you wrote it down. Setting goals has always been the first step to achieving them, and visualizing them on paper is just another, extra step to achievement.

It Helps You Stay Focused on You, Rather Than Things and People Around You

The most successful way to keep yourself motivated throughout the day is to start saving a record of all the tasks you want to accomplish in a day. You can make a list in the evening or early in the morning:

• Write down your exact goals for the day (take clothes to the dry-cleaners, stop by at the store, write a report for your boss, don’t skip your Duolingo lesson, go to the gym, etc.)
• Use the ‘checklist principle’ – when you complete a task, tick it done. The more ticks, the more motivated you’ll be for every new task.
• Keep your goals objective; if you set goals that are too far-fetched straight away; if not completed you may get demoralized taking you back to square one.

Start with the most important task first thing in the morning, then gradually move onto less important ones.

It’s Great for (Re)Evaluation

Writing down your completed tasks will have you motivated to keep ongoing. At the end of the day review everything you’ve done. You re-evaluate your steps, the time it took you to complete something, the best ways to get where you planned, and – regroup. Writing things down helps you mentally declutter and build a new mind-frame that doesn’t quit. When you see your thoughts organized into points, ideas, and completed actions, you’ll never lose motivation again.

Keep your motivation close to your heart and your diary even closer to write everything down. When you surprise yourself with a completed task (no matter how small), you’ll get addicted to making yourself happy and proud – and that, right there, is when motivation is born.