Skip to content

Change Your Life by Journalling in 2026

2023-09-29 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 16:04 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Goals, purpose and life design (also: Mindset, motivation and happiness) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Evidence-based framing, Lesson from a book, Sponsor segment present, His medical past

Ali calls journaling the habit that has most changed his life, because thoughts and feelings drive decisions, actions and results; he sets out three levels of journaling: recording your day, writing about your feelings (expressive writing, gratitude) and journaling about decisions with prompts such as the Odyssey plan, the wheel of life, the 12-month celebration, fear-setting and a conversation with your 85-year-old self.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Journaling as the habit that most changed his life; what the video covers

  • ★★★ Ali calls journaling the single habit that has most changed his life; he has journaled fairly consistently since about 2015 and credits it with many of the good things in his life. — 00:00:00

    “if there is one single habit that's most changed my life, that habit is journaling”

  • ★★ The first of Ali's three reasons to journal is looking back on memories: with about eight years of entries he can see what he was doing on the same day years earlier and how his life has progressed. — 00:00:29

00:00:41 — Three reasons journaling works: memories, control of your thoughts, and thoughts leading to decisions, actions and results

  • ★★★ Ali's second reason to journal: the more you write about your thoughts and feelings, the more detached from them you become, which helps people struggling with anxiety, fear, unworthiness or lack of self-love. — 00:01:39 · Mental health
  • ★ Ali says his decision to start his YouTube channel six and a half years earlier led him to make videos consistently, which has completely transformed his life. — 00:02:09
  • ★★ Ali argues that upstream of the decisions that dictate our actions and results are thoughts and feelings, including our beliefs and the stories we tell ourselves about our life. — 00:02:38
  • ★★★ Ali's third reason to journal: journaling is how we understand our thoughts and feelings, writing them down so we can question them and get clarity on the stories and beliefs we hold. — 00:03:07

00:03:36 — Sponsor read for the time tracker Rize

  • ★★ Level one of Ali's three levels of journaling, the most basic, is writing down what you have done today. — 00:04:35

00:04:44 — Level one: homework for life from Storyworthy and morning pages from The Artist's Way

  • ★★ Ali recommends homework for life, the exercise Matthew Dicks uses in Storyworthy to tell better stories: at the end of every day, ask what the most storyworthy thing that happened was and write it down in at most two sentences. — 00:05:04
  • ★★ Ali has done homework for life on and off since reading Storyworthy in 2020; in the months he stuck to it, it increased his appreciation for life because he remembers the small details. — 00:05:36
  • ★★ To start journaling, Ali says, open a journal, physical or digital, and write about a few things that happened that day; he likes the app Day One and also pen-and-paper journaling. — 00:06:06 · Day One
  • ★★ Ali recommends morning pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: every morning, write out about three pages, ideally by hand, of whatever is on your mind. — 00:06:35
  • ★★ On days he writes morning pages, Ali finds his mind less scattered, having offloaded some thoughts onto the page, and he comes up with interesting ideas for videos, writing or work. — 00:07:04
  • ★★ Ali says morning pages need not start at three pages: three lines or half a page will do, since every way of journaling aims to get thoughts and feelings onto the page, whatever the format. — 00:07:33
  • ★★ Level two of Ali's three levels of journaling is writing about how you are feeling, which he says has quite a lot of scientific evidence behind it. — 00:07:33
  • ★★ Ali cites a 2015 study in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology: of 70 students, the 35 who wrote expressively about a past painful event had better mental health and less stress four months later than the 35 who wrote about a neutral topic. — 00:07:33 · Mental health

00:07:46 — Level two: writing about feelings; studies on expressive writing and gratitude journaling; John Gottman's appreciation exercise

  • ★★ Ali explains that writing about a painful, negative or traumatic event helps you understand your thoughts and feelings about it, and once understood they are less prone to cause stress, worry and anxiety. — 00:08:03
  • ★★ Ali cites a 2017 study in the Journal of Happiness Studies: of 91 participants, those who did gratitude journaling four times over two weeks had higher happiness ratings and rated their friendships stronger a month later than a control group who wrote about their day. — 00:08:32
  • ★★ Ali explains that gratitude journaling focuses your attention on the good things in your life, and because what we pay attention to colours our experience of life, you end up happier. — 00:09:01
  • ★★ Ali cites a study he read showing that five minutes of gratitude journaling every morning has the same effect on happiness as doubling your salary. — 00:09:30
  • ★★ Ali recommends John Gottman's appreciation exercise: think of someone you want to thank, pick three qualities that characterise them, write about a time they showed each, then share what you wrote with them. — 00:10:00
  • ★★★ Level three of journaling, which Ali thinks the most powerful, is journaling about what you should do: the direction you want to go, the decisions to make and the actions to take now. — 00:10:29

00:10:54 — Level three: prompts for decisions: Odyssey plan, wheel of life, 12-month celebration, fear-setting

  • ★★★ One of Ali's favourite prompts is the Odyssey plan from Designing Your Life: journal about your life five years from now on your current path, on a completely different path, and on a different path if money and others' opinions did not matter. — 00:11:09
  • ★★★ Ali says doing the Odyssey plan in 2019 is what fundamentally prompted him to leave medicine. — 00:11:37
  • ★★ Ali recommends the wheel of life: split your life into eight to ten areas, rate your satisfaction with each out of 10, and repeat it through the year to see how the numbers change. — 00:12:04
  • ★★ Ali's 12-month celebration prompt: ask what, in each area of life, you would like to be celebrating with a friend 12 months from now, such as going to the gym three times a week; projecting forward shows what to do now. — 00:13:02
  • ★★ When worried about doing something, Ali uses Tim Ferriss's fear-setting: ask the worst that could happen, how to prevent and repair it, the benefits of an attempt, and what life looks like in six months to three years if you do not act. — 00:13:31 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ali says that calling journaling life-changing is not clickbait: the right decision can genuinely change the entire course of your life. — 00:13:58

00:14:26 — Solomon's Paradox and a conversation with his 85-year-old self; closing call for favourite prompts

  • ★★ Ali describes Alex Hormozi's journaling method based on Solomon's Paradox: since people give much better advice when they do not know it is about themselves, Hormozi holds a conversation with his 85-year-old self in a Google Doc. — 00:14:27
  • ★★★ Ali has started holding coaching sessions with his 85-year-old future self, asking him for advice; it helps him, at 29, see that what he worries about is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. — 00:14:57 · also in: 7 Things I Wish I Knew About Productivity Earlier
  • ★★ Ali says nothing is as serious as he makes it out to be in his mind: the mind tricks us into believing that what we are doing is hugely important. — 00:15:19

Threads in this video

  • refine · Should you journal, and how? — Level three of journaling, which Ali thinks the most powerful, is journaling about what you should do: the direction you want to go, the decisions to make and the actions to take now. (00:10:29)
  • restate · Should you journal, and how? — Ali recommends morning pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way: every morning, write out about three pages, ideally by hand, of whatever is on your mind. (00:06:35)
  • refine · How do you cope with mental health struggles? — Ali's second reason to journal: the more you write about your thoughts and feelings, the more detached from them you become, which helps people struggling with anxiety, fear, unworthiness or lack of self-love. (00:01:39)
  • restate · How do you become a better storyteller? — Ali recommends homework for life, the exercise Matthew Dicks uses in Storyworthy to tell better stories: at the end of every day, ask what the most storyworthy thing that happened was and write it down in at most two sentences. (00:05:04)
  • refine · How do you reduce stress? — Ali explains that writing about a painful, negative or traumatic event helps you understand your thoughts and feelings about it, and once understood they are less prone to cause stress, worry and anxiety. (00:08:03)
  • restate · How do you become happier? — Ali cites a study he read showing that five minutes of gratitude journaling every morning has the same effect on happiness as doubling your salary. (00:09:30)
  • refine · How do you keep a relationship healthy? — Ali recommends John Gottman's appreciation exercise: think of someone you want to thank, pick three qualities that characterise them, write about a time they showed each, then share what you wrote with them. (00:10:00)
  • restate · How do you design the life you want? — One of Ali's favourite prompts is the Odyssey plan from Designing Your Life: journal about your life five years from now on your current path, on a completely different path, and on a different path if money and others' opinions did not matter. (00:11:09)
  • refine · How do you design the life you want? — Ali recommends the wheel of life: split your life into eight to ten areas, rate your satisfaction with each out of 10, and repeat it through the year to see how the numbers change. (00:12:04)
  • mentioned · Ali does the Odyssey Plan in 2019 and finds his planned career in anaesthetics unexciting (2019) — Ali says doing the Odyssey plan in 2019 is what fundamentally prompted him to leave medicine. (00:11:37)
  • restate · Should you set goals, and how? — Ali's 12-month celebration prompt: ask what, in each area of life, you would like to be celebrating with a friend 12 months from now, such as going to the gym three times a week; projecting forward shows what to do now. (00:13:02)
  • restate · How do you stop overthinking decisions? — When worried about doing something, Ali uses Tim Ferriss's fear-setting: ask the worst that could happen, how to prevent and repair it, the benefits of an attempt, and what life looks like in six months to three years if you do not act. (00:13:31)
  • refine · How do you stop overthinking decisions? — Ali has started holding coaching sessions with his 85-year-old future self, asking him for advice; it helps him, at 29, see that what he worries about is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. (00:14:57)

Mentioned

Central: three levels of journaling

Also: People: Alex Hormozi · John Gottman · Julia Cameron · Matthew Dicks · Tim Ferriss

Works: Journal of Happiness Studies · Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology · Storyworthy · The Artist's Way

Concepts: 12-month celebration · expressive writing · fear-setting · gratitude journaling · homework for life · Mental health · morning pages · Odyssey plan · Solomon's Paradox · wheel of life

Products: Day One · Rize

Replies to

Replied to by

← Previous: Starting A Business is Easy, Actually · Next → I'll definitely be bringing this travelling @WHOOP #ad