Do More Each Day Through Fitness Journaling

I hope you saw my recent blog post for ONE Bars and LIVESTRONG about squeezing the most out of every day. (A shorter version of that post appeared on ONE Bar’s own blog too.) If you did, you know that one of my three main tips for finding time for a good workout in your busy schedule is making a list of your daily to-dos and activities. Let’s take that idea one step further and talk about one of my favorite activities that I find to be super helpful in planning my days: journaling and writing out my to-do list.

I’ve kept journals my whole life, and when trying to maintain my adult life with work, goals, social life and personal relationships, I found that journaling became even more important. It has become a daily activity. Journaling is a safe place to express yourself without judgment and to gain more clarity about situations. It’s become so important to me that I created a 30-day guided journaling program to help other people become more self-aware, set daily goals, learn to love themselves and master a daily schedule. Its called ENJOILIFE Journaling 1.0.

Keeping a journal doesn’t mean just recording frustrating, sad or confusing times. It is also a place you can discover what you like about yourself, reflect on your day and set goals. A journal of EVERYTHING.

When you write down your daily goals and to-do list, you are able to visually see your day as well as make a plan to execute it.

You can then decide what’s good and what you’d rather spend your time doing. Pretty soon, you’ll find yourself living MORE INTENTIONALLY and ENJOI[ING] LIFE rather than feeling like the days all run together and are starting to get away from you.

Journaling has been proven to be beneficial to our mental health and quality of life, so it’s the perfect thing to go with a new focus on health and lifestyle. I find journaling to have three specific benefits when it comes to finding time for exercise in a jam-packed day:

1. Be honest with yourself.

By forcing yourself to write down everything you do every day, you are admitting that you actually do these things. Yup, you spend three hours a day on your phone, or 90 minutes a day stuck in traffic, or whatever it may be… and truth be told, you don’t get those 8 hours of sleep you know you should be getting. By listing all of your activities, you see the good and the bad in your day to day.

2. Stay the course!

Once you move from writing what you did to what you are planning to do, you’ll find that fitness journaling helps you meet your expectations for yourself. It’s almost like once something’s in writing, you don’t want to fall short of it—whether or not anyone other than YOU ever sees it.

3. Celebrate your progress!

Once you’ve been journaling for a few months, you’ll be able to flip back in time to see how far you’ve come! Can you believe that earlier this year you couldn’t make it through a since HIIT class, or did not have a clear view of your personal goals. And now you’re doing three HIIT classes a week and know exactly what your goals look like for the rest of the year. That’s the kind of forward motion you can be proud of!

There’s no better day than TODAY to get started with your journaling!

Grab your phone, an old-fashioned day planner (complete with motivational quotes, if you like) or just a pad of paper and get going. List everything you can remember doing for the last few days: how you are feeling, some goals, what makes you happy, etc. then move on to sketching out what you think you’ll be doing for the rest of today and the rest of the week. And BOOM! All of a sudden, you’re keeping your very own ENJOILIFE journal.

Already a journaler and want to take it to the next level, or super excited about it and want to get started? Watch my Instagram page for news about ENJOILIFE journaling program 1.0. We will be focusing on lifestyle and journaling. The whole idea is that when you’re ENJOI[ING]LIFE, it’s not about time—you have simply filled your day with things that bring you joy in all aspects of your life. I’m excited to help people to take back control of their lives and start to ENJOILIFE!