How Journaling Helped Me Turn My Small Business Ideas Into Six Figures
You’ve no doubt heard the popular saying, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
Whether that’s totally true or not, I’ve found the exponential value of keeping a journal throughout my years in business, allowing me to continually align my work with my personal goals as well as identify patterns that were holding me back, strengths I could lean into, or ways to leverage my small business ideas into big income growth.
“Keeping a personal journal–a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences–is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.” — Stephen R.Covey
Journaling made a massive and measurable improvement in my business–and the results were immediate.
I gained more confidence in the direction I was taking my business.
I committed to projects with more motivation and enthusiasm.
I was able to see more opportunities for growth and expansion.
My productivity increased (along with sales).
All because I spent 10-15 minutes with my morning coffee dumping out the thoughts kicking around my brain onto paper.
If you’re looking to level up your business, don’t invest in a new $3,000 course or tech platform.
You already have everything you need to see a massive increase in your ability to make an impact and profit from what you’ve already built.
(If you just read that sentence and thought to yourself: “No way! My small business ideas don’t have that kind of potential!” then cut out that negative thinking right now!)
Achieving your small business goals begins by adding a little creativity to your regular routine and intentionally digging into those areas you feel a little weak.
For example, I have one journal that I call my little black book of mistakes, where I detail out those forehead-slap moments when I should have done something better but for whatever reason, failed to do so.
Those moments are crucial to write out. Because once you start to dig into why you’re making certain mistakes, you can begin to identify patterns.
Maybe you consistently underbid client proposals (guilty!)
Maybe you struggle to meet deadlines.
Maybe you miss opportunities to delegate.
Whatever your challenges may be, when you have them written down on paper, they transform from a nebulous thought to a concrete issue.
Yeah, somewhere in the back of my head I knew I constantly underbid jobs. But once I could see how often I did so and for how much, I couldn’t turn away from the opportunity costs!
But what’s more significant is that once you detail your mistakes, you can start to develop your plan of action to fill in your gaps and make yourself a better business woman (or just a better human in general!).
Here are a few practices you can use to start your business journal so that it uplifts and up-levels your ability to be an effective entrepreneur.
Journal daily(ish)
Write a gratitude list around what you already have
Reflect on a chapter from a business or self-development book
Write down your negative self talk and then flip your negative statements into affirmations -- post the affirmations on your wall or in a notebook you use often
Write out three stories you want to come true in different areas of your life: what you want your business to look like in a year, what you want your finances to look like, what you want your relationship with yourself or others to look like. Put in as much detail as possible -- really daydream it out and get it down on paper. Then, when you catch yourself spiraling into an unhelpful thought process, switch to obsessing over your imagined, awesome future
This last suggestion offered one of the biggest turning points I encountered when I was working to develop more confidence and move my business forward.
By spending the time to detail out what I wanted my life to look like in different areas, I created a stronger picture than a simple visualization.
Something I could return to again and again to refresh and solidify my desires for the future.
And that made these thoughts more easy to access whenever I found myself doubting myself, my business, or my ability to make an impact.
“What you’re thinking is what you’re becoming.” – Muhammad Ali
When you don’t control your thoughts, your thoughts control you. And unfortunately, our brains are wired to help us survive, not thrive.
So you need to be actively choosing what thoughts you allow your brain to run wild with.
More often than not, those are going to be fear-based unless you actively pull them toward the light.
When I catch myself in doubt, I turn to the words in my journal and run them through my brain instead–flipping the switch on fear toward confidence, purpose, and motivation.
One of the best lessons I’ve learned as a business owner (and one of the hardest to accept) is that we’re always in progress.
The reason so many people become unhappy when they reach their BIGGEST goal is because they think the goal is an end or a terminal achievement. I built a 7-figure business! Great! But...now what? I launched my course! Awesome!...but now what?
Psychologists have termed this the arrival fallacy, because we often think that once we get that thing–5 million views, a seven-figure paycheck, the Forbes list–it means we’ll be happy.
But there’s always a big now what lurking behind every goal and every one of your small business ideas. So we move to the next goal and idea. And then we feel the same way. And the cycle perpetuates itself.
Learning to be happy with progress is the key to sustainable happiness.
You hit goals, sure, and then you get the joy & excitement of working toward the next one. The goal is a little party you get to reward yourself within the stream of joyful doing.
