I’ve heard a lot of good things about journaling – usually in slightly breathless terms, to be honest – but haven’t really found a good way into it myself. When faced with a blank sheet of paper, my mind sort of joins in the fun and goes blank too, which is less than useful.

So I looked on YouTube, and found this journaling framework/template/thing created by the excellent Campbell Walker (of the YouTube channel “Struthless”) to give people new to journaling a handy roadmap. I’m going to try it over the coming days, weeks, months (hopefully), and years (I’m an optimistic fool!) and then report back on how I get on.

I’m using you as my accountability partners. Sorry.

So, how does it work… well the clue’s in the name, “VOMIT”, which is also an acronym, standing for:

• Vent
• Obligations
• Mindset
• Ideate
• Trajectory

as follows…

Vent

Write down everything that makes you ANGRY (rants are easy, after all!) Just vomit all the chaos onto the page right then and there, get that toxic crap out of your head, down your arm, and onto paper. It’s a useful, and powerful, indexing method, and lets you find the actual problem thoughts inside the mess of noise.

Obligations

• Obligation dump – write down anything that could remotely be considered an obligation
• Organise – sort into buckets – “Family”, “Work”, “Health”, “Admin”… whatever makes sense for you
• Prioritise – ask yourself, “Which thing(s) on this list, if done, would make everything else easier?”
• To-Do Lists – make a “Bare minimum” list (i.e. what do I have to have done today for tomorrow to not suck) and a “Killing it” list (i.e. what do I want to get done today for success?) Give yourself space to cope with crappy days.

Mindset

Choose from one/some/all of the following tools:

• Reframing – ask yourself, “How is this the best thing that has happened to me?” (even about shitty situations – your brain will find an answer 😉)
• Possibility – give yourself evidence about your identity statements by answering with a few “because” statements, for example:
  • “I am healthy” because:
    • I can climb the stairs without huffing and puffing
    • I go for a 30 minute walk every day
    • I eat a well balanced diet
• Inversion – When you’re stuck on a question, invert it by asking the opposite, and that will make the answer to the original question much clearer. For example, I want to know how to practise my photography more (but don’t know how to achieve that). If I ask, “how can I practise photography less?” answers might include:
  • storing my camera bag up in the loft.
  • letting my batteries go flat.
  • spending time on social media.
  • never leave the house.
  • Immediately, it’s pretty clear what I need to stop doing, in order to have more chance to take photos 😊
• Perspective – use the following prompt, “If you were a friend who was giving you advice on this situation right now (and you really really wanted you to succeed) what advice would you give?”
• Discipline – make it easier to do the thing you want to do, and harder to do the things you want to minimise, and then, whenever you go toward doing the thing you want to minimise, consciously decide to do the preferred thing instead.
• Gratitude – “What are three things that you’re grateful for today?” if you want to change it up, use the following modifiers for the three things:
  • Something mundane
  • Something that happened by chance
  • Something that you made happen

Ideate

Practice having ideas. For example, if you have a problem you’re trying to solve:

• Put on a timer for 5 minutes and then challenge yourself to come up with 30 solutions in that time. Don’t edit the list until it’s over!
• Ask yourself, “How would [InsertPersonHere] solve this problem?” (it can be anybody)
• Open the loop! Your brain doesn’t like an unanswered question, so opening the question and answer loop can force your subconscious mind to come up with an answer for you. Ask the question succinctly, just before you go to bed, and let it sit there… your brain will keep working on it in the background, until it comes up with an answer.

Trajectory

Measure the trajectory of the changes you’re making in two ways:

• Direction (measured on a daily/weekly/monthly basis)
  • State your goal
  • Ask if you’re moving away from the goal, or toward it
  • Provide a list of 3 or 4 items of evidence for moving toward and away from the goal (be honest!)
  • Adjust your behaviours to fix the bits where you’re moving away from the goal
  • Pat yourself on the back for the bits where you’re moving toward the goal.
• Day-To-Day, get the hidden metrics. It’s easy to know if you’re working well – external metrics like your bank balance, or performance reviews at work, will tell you. Hidden stuff takes a little more teasing out, so ask yourself these 3 questions for 30 days (or, you know, ongoing!):
  • What excited me?
  • What drained me of energy?
  • What did I learn?