How Journaling Can Change Your Life as it Did for Oprah, Branson, and Mandela

Translating thoughts to words can have a profound impact on all areas of your life.

I was sinking deeper into my chair when these two words splattered on the screen in front of me:

“Confirm submission.”

I hesitated. This was more than just four hours of intense examination. This was sixteen straight weeks of coming home from a full-time job to study. This was four months of social sacrifice. This was an accumulation of invested time, money, energy, and emotions.

I closed my eyes, hovered the mouse over and clicked the button.

I opened my eyes.

“Score: 590.”

Oh, no. My heart sunk deep into the well of disappointment. Once again — I had failed to achieve the GMAT score I needed to apply to graduate school.

I was devastated.

On my way back home I stopped by a café. There were so many emotions and thoughts going through my mind and I needed a minute just to sit down and process them. And there, as I stood in numbness within the queue to buy a shot of espresso, an omen presented itself to me: it was a journal notebook with six bold words printed across its cover:

Everything is going to be okay.

And that Wednesday, August 21st, 2013 was the first time I ever opened a journal to write — a habit I haven’t broken since, and one that has really changed my life.

Why All the Greats Journal

Each morning, Benjamin Franklin opened his notebook and asked himself, “What good shall I do this day?” and each evening, “What good have I done today?” Arianna Huffington takes a few minutes each morning to count her blessings and write them down. Albert Einstein amassed more than 80,000 pages of notes in his lifetime.

Oprah Winfrey hosted The Oprah Winfrey Show and went on to become a billionaire, a well-regarded philanthropist, and a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What did she attribute her success to?

Journaling.

Journaling is simply the act of thinking about certain aspects of your life and writing them down. The profoundness of it lies in its simplicity.

As mentioned above, some of the world’s greatest thinkers and innovators made it a daily habit to write and reflect in their journals. As Oprah said:

“Keeping a journal will absolutely change your life in ways you’ve never imagined”.

But how, exactly?

1. Journal to Develop Mental Clarity and Self-Awareness

First, and most importantly, journaling is a meditative, reflective practice. It allows you to sit alone with your mind and have an honest conversation with yourself. By spilling your emotions, feelings, and thoughts on paper, you relieve your mind from the clutter. It empowers you to lean into your feelings and listen to what they have to say.

Journaling helps you declutter your mind, which leads to better thinking.

Writing in a journal also sharpens your memory and improves your learning capability. There’s a reason why when you take the time to pen your thoughts, plans, and experiences, you remember them better, while also feeling more focused. In fact, research on “writing to learn” shows that the regular habit of writing in a journal helps us with metacognitive thinking.

Metacognition is “thinking about one’s thinking”, or in simpler terms, it’s our “awareness of our own thoughts.” That’s why you become more aware of your thoughts and what they’re trying to tell you when you write them down.

2. Journal Your Goals to Increase Your Chances of Actually Achieving Them

One central theme that has always resurfaced in my habit of journaling is how the written goals of the past manifest themselves as achievements in the future. It has happened to me several times over the years.

In my early twenties, I journaled about someday backpacking in Latin America for a few months, living with a family to learn Spanish and starting my own business. All of these goals were accomplished a few years later: I backpacked 90 days through Central America, I lived with a Guatemalan family for a few weeks and I launched my own business a year ago.

As it turns out, journaling helps you achieve your goals. Psychology professor Dr. Gail Matthews’ many studies on goal-setting concluded the following:

‘You are 42% more likely to achieve your goals, simply by writing them down on a regular basis.’

This can be explained by the brain’s encoding process — “the biological process by which the things we perceive travel to our brain’s hippocampus where they’re analyzed and either stored in our long-term memory or discarded.” Writing improves that encoding process and increases your chance of remembering what you wrote.

“I can’t tell you where I’d be if I hadn’t had a pen on hand to write down my ideas (or more importantly, other people’s) as soon as they came to me,” says billionaire Richard Branson. He attributes journaling as an enabler to his many successful ventures with Virgin.

He also has this to say about writing down your ideas and goals:

“If you don’t write your ideas down, they could leave your head before you even leave the room.”

3. Journaling Provides Proof of Progress While Reminding You of Who You’re “Becoming”

For the past three months, I’ve been publishing 3–4 articles a week. Do you know what has kept me going? My journal.

In my journal, I mark an “X” for every day I write. I also note how my viewership is growing and followers are increasing.

This is how I track my progress. And when I have an off-day and feel discouraged, I open up my journal and reflect on what I’ve achieved so far.

I literally see the growth in numbers, which motivates me to keep going. Journaling reminds me that I’m becoming what I want to be: a writer.

What’s more powerful than that is the opportunity to revisit the past. When you can lay down on the bad and flip through 5–6 years of notes you had written, you have the power to literally relive the days of your life. And what you discover is this:

You’ve evolved.

You can look back to see how far you’ve come; because who you were 5 years ago and who you are today are two different people.

“It’s astonishing to be able to track your own evolution — who I was, who I’m still becoming.” — Oprah Winfrey

This is the beauty of journaling. It unfolds your life story while reminding you that your life is still incomplete — you’re still writing your story, you’re still becoming.

Nelson Mandela used journaling as a medium to converse with himself and find the light in the darkness during his 27-year imprisonment: “The mere fact of writing down my thoughts and expressing my feeling gives me a measure of pleasure and satisfaction. It calms down the shooting pains that hit me when I think of you [his daughters].”

But when it comes to transformation, in his journal he wrote:

“There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.”

A journal takes you back to who you were while reminding you that you still have a chance of becoming who you want to be.

4. Journal to Become a More Grateful Person

Rumi, a Persian poet from the 13th century, graced us with words of great light and beauty. He said:

“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.”

He implies that gratitude allows you to see life through the lens of abundance, and by practicing gratitude, its positive implications will spill over into other areas of your life.

Oprah Winfrey agrees. In fact, she believes that keeping a gratitude journal was the single most important thing she’s ever done. She found that the more she journaled about the experiences she was grateful for, the more positive her perspective on life became.

Here’s what she has to say:

“You have to write them down. It’s very different from just saying ‘I’m grateful for today’. You have to physically write them down because there’s power in the words… Opportunities, relationships, even money flowed my way when I learned to be grateful no matter what happened in my life.”

Translating thoughts to words can have a profound impact on your life. If Oprah writes down five things she’s grateful for on a daily basis, why can’t you?

The Easiest Way to Start Journaling

There’s no one way to journal.

I have a free-flowing “life” journal that I visit once or twice a week to reflect on how things are going for me emotionally, mentally and spiritually — the highs and the lows. This is the journal where my thoughts just wander. In a way, it documents my life story.

Then there’s the daily journal that I use to track habits and scribble notes, deliverables, ideas, and to-do lists. This is where monthly goals are set and reviewed and where daily progress is recorded and measured.

I also have a small pocket-sized journal that I keep in my backpack whenever I’m on the go. I especially love it for travelling as it’s so easy to carry and pull it out on the spot when I feel very “reflective” or inspired.

There’s no “right” way to journal either. You can journal whenever you want, wherever you want, about whatever you want. That’s the beauty of it — it’s just you, your mind and your journal.

But if you’re looking for a way to start, here’s an idea:

Write one line per day.

That’s it. One single line every day.

Just remember, there’s no right or wrong way to journal. What’s important is that you do.

“I’ve been journaling since I was 15. I used my journals as therapy. I wrote a lot of bad poetry in my teens and 20s, mostly about how some guy had done me wrong. I used my journals as therapy. Oh, the time I wasted worrying about men and weight, and what other people thought! But in my 40s, I got wiser. I started using journals to express my gratitude — and watched my blessings multiply.What you focus on expands.” — Oprah

How Journaling Changed My Life

Little did I know that as I stood in that queue, I was about to change my life for the better.

In the midst of the chaotic manoeuvres of my thoughts, the first words that I wrote in my newly purchased journal re-affirmed what was written on its cover:

“Everything is going to be okay.”

And as more words poured onto the pages, I rekindled my light, which helped me relight the world around me.

As Rumi eloquently said: “It is your light that lights the worlds.”

Journaling helped me become more self-aware, achieve my goals, track my progress and become a more grateful person. In fact, it even helped me develop my craft of writing.

But more importantly, on that very day, my first journal entry concluded with the decision that I will re-write my GMAT for the 3rd time… I did. I passed. And I got accepted to my Master’s degree which took me around the world and back, studying in Canada, France, India, and Hong Kong.

This is how journaling can change your life.

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