Want to Achieve Your Goals? Use These Five Reflection Routines When Journaling

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My first bullet journal was a simple tri-fold I found in a copy of The Big Book of Less. The authors referenced The Bullet Journal Method by Ryder Carroll for intentional living, so I tried it out in this sample. Three headings - objectives, wish list, leisure - helped organize my ideas and interests as I wrote them out.

One year later, with a more fully developed journaling practice, I decided to reread my first attempts. How had I grown over the last year?

Whoa. Almost every single task or item I had written down I had accomplished. All of the books on my to-read list were read. Every goal that was possible to meet was met.

This is not to give myself a pat on the back, but to point out that setting goals and actually writing them down is essential. They are more likely to happen.

Yet goal setting by itself does not necessarily lead to success. I have learned that it has to be accompanied with continuous reflection. That is how I have started to see improvement: by taking the time to look back upon my intentions and attempts, analyze why I was or was not able to make progress, and then adjust for the future.

The rest of this article describes my reflection habits and how they fuel my momentum toward what I want to achieve.

Daily Reflection

In the evening, I review my tasks for the day, adding items I forgot to write down. For each task, I ask myself the questions suggested in The Bullet Journal Method (p. 136):

• Why is this important?

• Why am I doing this?

• Why is this a priority?

To quickly assess each task using this criteria, I give it a plus (good), check (okay), or minus (not so good). Time with family and myself, passion projects, and anything else connected to my larger goals are almost always good. For the other two, I ask myself questions such as “Do I need to be doing this?”, or “Is this someone else’s responsibility?” This process helps me filter actions that are taking away time elsewhere.

For items that I am continuously migrating to the next day, and they are at least a responsibility if not a priority, I will simplify it to a smaller task. For example, instead of “Scrub rest of deck”, I changed it to “Scrub the sides of the deck.” Still not getting done? “Scrub the north side of the deck.” The smaller the task, the more likely I am to do it.

Weekly Reflection

Pausing and thinking about my actions gives me that additional friction, as Ryder describes it, to assess how I am spending my days.

This is why I also added a weekly reflection, usually conducted on Sundays. I will read my tasks and journaling from the previous six days, looking for themes and patterns. I consolidated questions from a Benjamin Hardy article (2018) to guide this process.

• What went well and what didn’t?

• What was significant and what is coming up?

• What can I take from the previous week and apply to the upcoming week?

• How are my actions aligned with (or not aligned with) my big picture goals and more proximal objectives?

For me, I find waiting a month to take a step back and review a series of days or weeks is too cumbersome. I get lost in the weeds of the daily minutia and forget about why I am doing what I am doing. Weekly reviews give me a bird’s eye view of my habits and intentions.

Monthly Reflection

In addition to after sprints, those short term learning projects toward larger goals, I have applied those questions suggested in The Bullet Journal Method to the end of each month as one more layer of reflection (p. 164-165).

• What am I learning about my strengths, my weaknesses?

• What’s working, and what isn’t?

• What could I do a little bit better next time?

• What value was added to my life?

That last question is critically important. It’s been a month. Was this time well spent? If not to my expectations, I try not to get down on myself. Through reflection, I can find value in the failures as well as the wins.

For example, I devoted time to develop a monthly maintenance schedule for taking care of our backyard. After realizing how much work it was to develop a schedule, let alone maintain a backyard, I instead found a month-by-month gardening guide already written for my state’s climate. My personalized schedule was a failure, yet I added value by taking time to understand that my efforts were better focused elsewhere.

Seasonal/End-of-Journal Reflection

After one year, I have found that I go through a journal about every three months, or one per season. These natural transition points in life remind me that change is inevitable, and they can even be welcomed.

I live in Wisconsin where winter can be harsh. Instead of dreading the upcoming cold and snow, I can notice the changing colors of the leaves and better appreciate my kids’ anticipation for Halloween.

For guiding my reflection, I adapted questions from James Clear (pg. 247):

• What are the core values that drive my life and my practice?

• How am I living and working with integrity right now?

• Do I need to adjust my expectations for the future?

This transition draws a close to my quarterly goals. Did I accomplish what I set out to do? If not, why not? What’s typical is I achieve some successes while missing the mark in at least one area. This tension creates a space for rethinking what it is I am really striving for in my life. Maybe I am not not describing the challenge clearly enough, or I need to aim lower. 

Yearly Reflection

This is the big review. There is so much information I’ve put in my journals. Instead of reading through my daily logs, I now reread my monthly and my weekly reflections for insights. They are like steps along a staircase, each one taking me toward my goals.

For this process, I lifted more reflection questions from James Clear (pg. 247):

• What went well this year?

• What didn’t go so well this year?

• What did I learn?

I have found that, the longer the time I am reviewing and analyzing, the more general the reflection questions need to be.

And that is how I came to fully appreciate the power of reflection: by looking back on my initial attempt at Bullet Journaling from one year ago. That simple dotted tri-fold captured my initial hopes and dreams. I didn’t complete them all in the time expected, but I did write them down and eventually I did achieve what I wanted. Pausing, pondering, and persistence seems to win the day as much as planning and doing.

References

Carroll, R. (2018). The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future. New York: Portfolio/Penguin.

Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. New York: Avery/Penguin.

Hardy, B. (January 3, 2018). “How to Write in Your Journal to Improve Yourself and Achieve Your Goals” Medium. Available: https://medium.com/mind-cafe/how-to-write-in-your-journal-to-improve-yourself-and-achieve-your-goals-7a8171aabad3

Smit, I. & Van Der Hulst, A. (2019). The Big Book of Less: Finding Joy in Living Lighter. New York: Workman Publishing.