Chapter 8
Self-RECORDING
Construction Stage 1.5: Planning and Scheduling
SAL Model Stage 1.5: Self-Recording
"If your life is worth living, it's worth recording."
—Anthony Robbins
 |
JOURNALING is one of the most important
practical skills a self-action leader
can practice on a regular basis. |
Self-recording refers to the art and science of calendaring, and more especially to JOURNALING.
It is metaphorically analogous to planning, scheduling, and tending to other logistical details involved in constructing a skyscraper. Just as a building company must coordinate numerous particulars in the execution of a construction project, YOU must likewise plan, schedule, and coordinate the daily minutia involved in leading, managing, and constructing your life and career.
Self-recording activities empower you to work out and refine your ideas, make them more concrete and detailed, conceptualize plans of action, and then draw it all up in an organized manner.
It also affords you the opportunity to become a self-historian and gain the insights and other benefits of self-awareness derivable through deep introspection.
In addition to helping you check—and then accurately confirm—the details of past events, self-recording is also useful for reviewing and analyzing your ongoing progress as well.
 |
JOURNALING is great
for your MEMORY |
Journaling is also marvelous for your MEMORY.
To wit: Folks sometimes comment on my own accurate and prodigious memory, and I have my prolific journaling habit to thank for it—at least in part.
If you were a diarist or journaler before diving into this Life Leadership textbook, that is great! If, on the other hand, your first foray into regular journaling was in your SAL journal, that's good also. If you still have not started a personal diary or journal, I invite—and strongly urge you—to begin one today.
Some people (like me) like to save their journals in word processing and spreadsheet files, or online as a web document or blog. Others prefer to write it out the old-fashioned way by putting pen to paper in a notebook or leather-bound journal. Some prefer scrapbooking, photo albums, audio recordings, videography, or some other modern tool and technique for self-recording.
How you do it is of secondary importance.
The important thing is that you DO IT!
We at Freedom Focused encourage you, of course, to record your SAL Journal right here inside this Life Leadership textbook, where a lot of blank space has been reserved for this very purpose. However, if you are an extra dedicated and enthusiastic diarist, you may want to make this text just one of several places in which you engage in self-recording activities.
Composing a diary or journal deepens and improves your introspective processes, self-awareness, self-analysis and examination, personal planning, and writing skills.
It also helps you gain a greater sense of your life's meaning and purpose.
 |
| Every self-action leader's planning system will be unique. |
In addition to these many benefits, Journaling provides therapeutic benefits to your emotions, psyche, and soul. This is because it is an ideal place and medium where you can safely vent and otherwise process angry, frustrated, or hurt feelings in a low-risk environment. Ample anecdotal evidence exists to suggest that journaling contributes to higher levels of emotional intelligence, mental hygiene, and Existential Growth.
Calendaring and day planning—electronically or via paper—are also key components of self-recording. If you plan something and write it down, you are more likely to remember and then keep your commitments. And like journaling, how you choose to proceed with the process itself (e.g. computer, paper, smart phone, etc.) is of secondary importance to just doing it.
So...
Put together a system of tools that works well for you, and then, as the old saying goes:
Plan your work; and work your plan!
SAL Master Challenge
EXERCISE #9
1. If you don't already have a system for calendaring and planning, organize and prepare a system that works for you and then start using it TODAY.
2. If you haven't already done so, begin a new journal—separate from your SAL journal—in the medium of your choice by composing a fresh entry for TODAY.
Determine how often you plan to write and then maintain your writing momentum by meeting your regularity goal.
REMEMBER: Your personal journal is private. You can therefore write whatever you want in it.
For Example:
- Daily task (to-do) list
- Daily record of events
- Thoughts
- Feelings
- Fears
- Frustrations
- Ideas
- Inspiration
- Hopes
- Dreams
- Loves
- Joys
- Challenges and obstacles
- Pains and struggles
- Pet peeves
- Epiphanies
- Breakthroughs
- Values
- Vision
- Goals
- Standards
- Etc.
—Dr. JJ
Wednesday, February 26, 2025
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, USA
Author's Note: This is the 435th Blog Post Published by Freedom Focused LLC since November 2013 and the 241st consecutive weekly blog published since August 31, 2020.
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