Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] There is one surprising practice that many mega successful people have. And this practice has the power to transform your whole life. My name is Michael Riggs. I'm a full time author, artist and entrepreneur, husband and father of five. And I teach men all over the world how to live fully optimized lives. And in today's episode, we're getting into the power of journaling. Stick around. Hello and welcome to the Warrior Kings podcast. I'm your host, Michael Riggs, here to assist you on your journey to living a fully optimized, leveled up life as a man. So again, welcome. Welcome to the Warrior Warrior Kings podcast. It's good to have you here today. It's great to talk to you today. Really quick, before we get into it, this podcast is growing on the audio platforms. It's blowing up everywhere. But most of my listeners aren't subscribed on YouTube. So if you want to get the video versions of this podcast as well as other content that I put out, head over to the Michael Riggs official YouTube channel and get subscribed. Keeping a diary doesn't sound very manly at a glance, especially if you call it a diary. So let's stick with journal for now. The truth is, men all throughout history kept journals. And some of the of the most successful people in the world practice journaling. And while journaling might sound kind of girly, it's actually one of the most masculine practices that you can have. You can imagine the soldier who's away at war scribbling down his thoughts with the flashes and sounds of explosions in the distance. Or the inventor like Leonardo da Vinci, writing out his thoughts and ideas with intricate drawings of his imaginings. There's something very special about writing things down in a journal, and it's a practice that feels ancient if you consider the world that we're living in that's full of distractions and technology. Many people don't even remember the last time they wrote something down with a pen. You might be wondering what's so powerful about keeping a journal and why so many successful people keep this practice to this day. And there are actually numerous benefits to this. For one, journaling allows you space to use your own brain and explore your own thoughts. In this world of distractions. It allows you space to get to know yourself. And if that sounds scary, or if you don't know where to start, I'm going to be getting into some things that you can begin journaling right away in just a little bit. But the thing is, life is loud these days and constantly being fed information from other people, so much so that we rarely have time to look within. Journaling is a great tool for detaching from the distractions of modern life and taking the time to work through our internal world, which is something that's very important, but also more and more rare. You can also use journaling to train yourself to think deeper about things. Who you are, what the meaning of everything is, where you're going and who you want to be. And if you don't consider yourself a deep thinker, you will. After a year of journaling, trust me, you will train yourself to have deeper thoughts about everything. Everything. Deep thought is like a muscle. When you train it, it gets stronger. Writing in a journal by hand can also open you up to insights and ideas that you might not have had otherwise. The smartest thoughts that I've ever had came to me when I was writing also my best ideas. It's kind of like a different mode for my brain, and I'm definitely more of a writer than a speaker. I don't know if you gathered that by now, but putting things down on paper sort of puts you in a different mode, where you will have more insightful thoughts and you will be able to generate ideas in a totally different way. There's also great power in writing things. Research has shown that people are 42% more likely to accomplish their goals if they wrote them down first. That's pretty powerful. So you are 42% more likely to live your dream life if you write it all out in a journal first and give yourself clear direction and a clear vision of what that dream life looks like and what it's going to take to get there. So what kind of journal should you get? That's a matter of personal preference, but I have three favorites. The first is a hardback large journal. I actually buy sketchbooks for this. The one that I'm holding right now isn't a hardback. It's a harder back. But usually I get the hardback sketchbooks. The only downside to this is there's no lines on the paper. But this is the perfect kind of journal to write down ideas or quick thoughts or to organize plans and goals. You can think of it as sort of a whiteboard on every page. So if you like organizing thoughts and ideas into charts or lists or bullet points and graphs, this is a good choice. My second pick is like a classic smaller journal. I prefer to get them with the leather cover. There's just something romantic about it. It gives that classic journal vibe. And this is the kind of journal that I use to write down my deep thoughts. It's more poetic and abstract. So I go for more of like a notebook style journal for ideas and a smaller one for more introspective and even spiritual thoughts sometimes. And the third is a field notes pocket style journal. And keeping one of these is an awesome practice. Dude, it's just a little notebook that you keep in your pocket that you can write down quick ideas in. Or if your brain randomly generates one of those mind blowing quotes that you always for some reason forget, you can just pull this out and scribble that down. Like I said, there is great power in actually writing things down. And with a field notes pocket style journal you can do that pretty much anytime. Personally, I carry these mini composition notebooks, but they actually have thinner, cooler looking ones that are designed to be field notes journals and they fit in your pocket a little better if that's something you're into. But like this mini composition notebook is just a couple dollars for a whole pack of them. So I just go with these. And then you have this collection of little notebooks of ideas that you can flip through later for inspiration. Pretty awesome. And so maybe you're sold, maybe you want to start journaling, but you just don't know where to start, you don't know what to write about. So now I'll give you ideas and some things that I write down in my own journals periodically. Some of my favorite things to write about, to just, you know, reflect, get to know myself, get a clear vision of where I'm going. And the first thing is writing out the vision of your life. The way I do this is I write down the vision for my future in my life in bullet points, step by step, event by event. Sometimes I'll write the year and it's kind of like goal setting as well. But it's basically if everything were to work out perfectly what my life would look like, event by event. So I'm someone who is always pursuing success in my business and endeavors and I have big dreams, big plans for the future and big dreams and plans for my family and where we're going. So I write out the vision of my life and I do this periodically and it'll change from time to time because as we grow, as we learn, we want different things in life. So it's interesting to look back at how much the vision of my life has changed over the years. But writing out the vision of my life gives me a clear vision of where I'm going and what it's going to take to get there, to make that dream life happen. You understand what I'm saying? So that's one thing that I would start with, is write out the vision of your life. What do you want your future to look like? What are your biggest goals and dreams and aspirations? Write it out in bullet points, event by event, until you reach your ultimate dream, your ultimate destination, whatever that looks like to you. Success looks different to every person. You know, to some people, success is getting super rich and famous. To other people, successes, getting a farm and living off the land and focusing on things that are beautiful in life. You know, whatever success looks like to you, write out the vision of your life ending in that ultimate success. And then reflect on what it's going to take to get there. The second thing you can begin journaling about is very closely related to that one. But it's just goal setting. Write out plans and goals and what it will take to get there and accomplish them. So let's say you want to get super fit, you want to go on a fitness journey. Write out your fitness goals. Write that down in your journal. Let's say you want to grow your personal brand, Write out your goals for that. What is it going to take to grow your personal brand and be super successful in that endeavor? Write out your goals and then take action. Start checking those goals off as you go. Another thing that I write down in my journals periodically is my vision for my ideal self. Because I'm someone who's focused on constant self improvement and constant growth. I always think that I can be better in a healthy way. Of course, I don't think that I just can't ever be good enough. No, what I'm saying is I'm committed to growth in every aspect of my life. So I write down the attributes and the traits of my ideal self, the things that I want to improve in my life. Like let's say is a better speaker, right? That might be something that I write down, but I do that if bullet points as well, where it's just all of the traits that I want to adopt and the things that I want to improve in my life. It's basically a description of my ideal self, who I aspire to be. So it might be things like is a good father and husband, you know, things like that. So it's writing out the vision of your ideal future self and also what it will take to get there. And the last thing I want to share with you here that you can begin journaling about right away is working through your limiting beliefs, or as I Call them life ruining fictitious mental constructs. So we all have these deep seated beliefs about the world and life and these are subconscious, like we're not entirely aware of them. But these false beliefs can actually cause us to self sabotage our own success. So let's say you're aspiring to be a super successful business person. You might have some deep seated subconscious beliefs that are actually sabotaging that success. It could be something like all people who have a lot of money are evil and I don't want to be evil, so I hold back from giving it my all, all. You understand what I'm saying? The way that you're going to journal yourself out of these false beliefs, these life ruining fictitious mental constructs, is by recognizing what it is, what's holding you back from that ultimate success. What are these beliefs? And writing them down and then writing why they're not true. So you're going to identify the belief, write it down, and then under that, right, why this isn't true and then rationalize it, work through it, be like this isn't true because X, Y and Z, prove it to yourself that that belief is false so that you can clear it. So I was doing this myself yesterday, working through some of my false beliefs and I'll share one of them with you right now. So one of my false beliefs for a long time is that God doesn't want me to be successful in certain endeavors which automatically you can tell that that's false. So like if numbers for example, aren't growing in one of my businesses, I'll make the mistake of sort of blaming God and being like, why don't you want this success for me? And it's just a false belief because of course God wants me to succeed, right? So I wrote down God not wanting me to succeed, why it's not true. God gifted me all of talents for a reason. God protected me for a reason. God does want me to succeed. God has already blessed me with a beautiful abundant life. So you see, you're taking the false belief and then you're rationalizing why it's false and why it's not true. And this is extremely powerful. Another one that I wrote down was I'm not cool enough and not credible enough imposter syndrome. And then I wrote why that's not true. And I worked my way through it because imposter syndrome, or feeling like you're not the guy to be talking about certain things is a natural thing that all self help, personal development, coaches and creators go through. Because I think that it's very unnatural to think that you're a super awesome person. Right? So sometimes I have to work through that myself and be like, no, the advice that I'm giving is good because I've been there. I've been through the experiences. I have the life experience and this wisdom. I can share it with other people and help them in their lives. And I am credible enough because I have the life experience. I've been through all of the things that I teach and I've improved those aspects of my life. And I can teach that to other men and other people people. So that's another example of a false belief that I have to work through. So what you're going to do is identify the belief, write it down, and then rationalize why it's not true and work your way through it. That way you can clear that false belief and move forward towards the success that is waiting for you in this life. And that false belief will no longer have the power to sabotage that success. So those are some things that you can begin journaling about right away. I hope this inspired you to give it a try. I know that keeping a diary doesn't sound manly and you might not have even considered it before, but it is an awesome practice and it can really, really level up your path to success in all areas of your life. And it will help you to work through your internal world, to think deeper about things, to be more introspective, to take the time to explore yourself, get to know yourself in this loud, loud, distracting world. Super healthy practice. If you enjoyed this episode, definitely subscribe to this podcast. Subscribe to the YouTube channel. I have a mailing list down in the description where you can sign up for exclusive content and updates sent to your email every week. And books are also linked in the description of this episode. My Books Warrior King and Warrior Husband if you need a good book in your life, if you've been journaling for a while, let me know in the comments on YouTube how it's transformed your life. Let me know some of the things that you journal about. Maybe you'll give me some new ideas of things that I can work through myself. If you begin journaling after watching this or listening to this, come back and let me know how it's changed your life because I would love to hear from you now. Go out there, kill it. Pursue greatness in every aspect of your life. I love you, I'm proud of you, and there are great things in store for you in the this life. You listening to this right now. A life of overflowing abundance awaits you on the other side of you making the decision to level up. It was great to talk to you today, and I'll see you on the next one. Thanks, guys. Bye.
