Welcome to the Get Your Goal podcast, the place where ambitious, deep-thinking women chart their own course, exploring the mindset, emotions, and daily practices that help you get your goal your way by being unapologetically you. I'm your host, Pahla B, master certified life and goal coach and creator of the Daily 3 journaling framework.
On this podcast, you'll learn to navigate your unique path to success by using the most powerful tool in your kit, your own internal compass. Ready for the adventure? Let's go. Hello, friend. Today we are talking about why your gratitude journaling isn't working, and I would apologize for being so blunt about that, except for the fact that you and I both know that it's not.
I mean, I know why you come to gratitude journaling. It's the same reason I came to gratitude journaling. I wanted to feel better. I wanted to stop being so angry all the time. That's my case. You might have something slightly different that brought you to gratitude journaling. And you want to get your goals.
I mean, for me personally, when I started trying to gratitude journal, and yes, I'm gonna use that phrase because I did try it and ended up giving up on it because it wasn't working for me. If you are still in the middle of gratitude journaling, you know that thing where you're finding something at the end of every day that happened today that you feel grateful for, or finding three things at the end of every day, or starting your day with gratitude journaling, or at the end of the week looking for five things that went well.
Like, no matter how you're doing your gratitude journaling, there's something that you've noticed that you kind of don't want to admit, and it's why I'm taking the lead here on this podcast and saying it out loud for both of us. You notice maybe that you feel a little better. I personally didn't. It's why I didn't gratitude journal for very long, and I'm gonna tell you the whole story of it here in just a minute.
But, but you also notice that it's not really getting you closer to your goals. Like, I do hope, honestly, that you are feeling better from your gratitude journaling. I hope that you've noticed that it's helping you a little bit because, I mean, here's why I hope that. Because if you are thinking, "Oh gosh, this isn't working at all," which is what I thought, then you are possibly on the cusp of giving up on journaling altogether, which is what I did, and that's why I'm having this conversation with you here today, that you don't need to give up on your gratitude journaling.
There is simply a tweak that can make it more effective for actually getting your goals. So here's my story. Many, many years ago at my last job, which was, oh my gosh, so long ago now, and thank goodness for it. The, the last job was my last job for a reason. I was so miserable there for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that it was a time in my life before I was really truly doing, like, actual mindset work.
I was skirting on the edge of it, which is why I'm gonna tell you about how I was trying out gratitude journaling. But I I realize now, all these years later, that I just constantly walked around with low-grade anger at everything. I was frustrated constantly. I was miserable constantly. I complained all the time about, honestly, everything.
And, and I can freely admit that now because I don't feel that way anymore. I do legitimately feel good most of the time, and have a beautiful process to help myself out of those times when I feel miserable or complainy or frustrated. And coming back to our point today, it's not gratitude journaling, or at least it's not gratitude journaling the way I was doing it.
So here I was at this job at a chain of women's fitness centers that I refuse to name, because I hated that job so much. I, I really... You know, let me actually tell you a little bit more of this story. I didn't want that job except for the fact that I wanted a job, and I wanted a job in fitness. I had just recently started running and started really, like, getting into health and fitness and all the things that eventually defined my life and my career.
It was before I was a personal trainer, and it was after I was a preschool teacher. I had loved being a preschool teacher, like, loved it, and I would've continued doing that job for a very long time. It wasn't a job, actually. My mom and my sister and I started a business together at a preschool, and we came to the conclusion together that my sister would take over my job doing, teaching my classes for a variety of financial reasons that meant that I went out and got a job out in the world.
So my attitude going into it was kind of poor. I really liked being a preschool teacher and did not want to work for somebody else, but also simultaneously did. I mean, it added to our family's, you know, financial health for me to have a job. So I wanted the job, but I'm kind of putting air quotes on that one.
So here I am at this job that I kind of want and kind of don't want, and I'm working for a company that I disagree with in terms of, like, what they are teaching. I'm working with Gosh, I, I don't wanna say that I didn't like the people because I, I have no idea where they are or what they're doing. It's not entirely true.
And also, I felt like, if you have a job, you probably know what I mean. There was a lot of just kind of petty, under the surface, kind of passive aggressive stuff that went on where everybody who worked there kind of felt like they knew best how the place should be run, and I was no exception. I definitely felt like I could run the place better than anybody else.
So I wanted to be in more of a managerial position. I wanted, I wanted to be in charge. I mean, let's be honest, that's what it al- always comes down to for me. It's why I'm an entrepreneur. I like being in charge. And, and you know, I look back and it's, uh, it's very clear to me I would not have been great in a managerial position, but I still wanted it at the time.
And so that is what actually brought me to gratitude journaling. I felt so bitter, and angry, and frustrated, and I wanted to be doing something that I wasn't doing, so I had this goal of being in a managerial position. And in fact, the, the real goal at the time was to purchase the franchise so that I could be the owner, that I could be the real boss, not just a managerial position.
So I did not do anything really formal in terms of, like, researching gratitude journaling. I was not following a very specific formula. I had just heard about gratitude journaling the way that one hears about things, by knowing who Oprah Winfrey is and knowing that, like, gratitude journaling is a thing.
So I I honestly don't remember exactly how I did it. I feel like I probably tried to gratitude journal every day, and that went by the wayside almost immediately because it's virtually impossible to be consistent with something every single day that does not feel pleasurable. So I was probably doing it sporadically, like every once in a while, just trying to find something that I was grateful for.
And mostly it ended up being things like, you know, this person that I work with wasn't egregious today or, you know, my boss gave me a, a half-hearted compliment. Like, I was not trying very hard to find, you know, to dig deep and find things that I was, was truly grateful for. And from my perspective now, what I can see is what I'm about to tell you.
Like, what I was looking for in terms of things I was grateful for were definitely all outside of me. I'm getting a little ahead of myself here with that, with, uh, spoiler alert, telling you that looking for things outside of you that you are grateful for is part of the reason why it doesn't work. But here's what I'm also gonna tell you, and this is what I think is probably going on with you, if I had to guess.
When you notice that gratitude journaling isn't working, in fact, when we notice that anything isn't working, all of us do this thing that is hilarious when I say it out loud, and yet all of us do it. We just double down on what's not working. Like, I know you've done this, and that's why I'm mentioning it.
Again, we're all friends here. I say this with zero judgment. It's exactly what I did. When I noticed that gratitude journaling wasn't working, I tried to do more of it. More when something is not working is almost never the answer, and yet all of us think that it is because we've heard, oh, it, gratitude journaling works, that it, it helps you feel better.
It helps you, you know, get everything you want in life. So almost all of us, and there is an entire conversation to be had here about this, instead of looking to shift it or do the thing with more nuance, we just try to do more volume, more of it So I doubled down and tried really hard to get consistent and to gratitude journal every single day.
And the truth of it is that e- eventually, like, I ended up giving up on it. What I know from my perspective now is that doing more was not the solution, but gratitude journaling with a couple of slight tweaks, a couple of slight nuances, truly the thing that we always talk about here on this podcast, ta- taking it slightly deeper, looking at it with a subtle shift is actually the answer.
Just coming through with a sledgehammer and trying to do more is very rarely going to take you all the places you want to go. But digging in, understanding it a little bit better, understanding the nuances and the textures and the shapes and the shifts, that, my friend, is where you can get real traction.
Because here's what I will tell you. If you are not new around here, you've heard me talk about my Daily 3 framework before. Inside the Daily 3 framework, which is, is my journaling method, my journaling framework that rewires your brain for success and actually takes you all the way to your goal, not just, "Oh, I feel a little bit better," or, "Oh, I'm sort of, kind of, maybe making my way to my goal," but truly helps you see your goal, untangle your- yourself from the things, meaning you, your mindset blocks, that are currently stopping you, and helps you become the person who has what you want There is a part of The Daily 3 that is gratitude journaling, but it's gratitude journaling with some subtle shifts and tweaks that I'm actually about to tell you right now.
Here's the problem with gratitude journaling. There are two of them. Number one, if you are anything like me, and if you are anything like the women that I work with who come to journaling from this place of, "Okay, I'm grateful for," we all look outside of ourselves for things to be grateful for, meaning that we take a look at how other people have treated us or how circumstances have worked out for us.
We're grateful for the weather. We're grateful for, like I was saying, you know, when my boss gave me a half-hearted compliment. We try really hard to feel gratitude about things outside of us. But that, oh so subtly, keeps us at the mercy of circumstances instead of this subtle shift that I'm gonna offer you, being grateful for the things that you have direct control over, being grateful, essentially, for yourself.
Now, I know some of you are like, "Ooh, that sounds like we're getting a little too full of ourselves, and that's the opposite of gratitude." And what I really wanna offer you is that the essence of gratitude is agency. Really taking on that you do indeed have agency and control over some things, and it's not other people, it's not circumstances, it's yourself, your responses to other people and circumstances.
It's the things that you personally have complete agency over that you can truly own and feel gratitude for. And what I will also offer you here as a, a subset of this shift is that what you might feel isn't necessarily the feeling of gratitude. It might be instead a version of self-trust, self-love, self-respect Which leads me to the second subtle shift that gratitude journaling needs in order to actually work to take you all the way to your goal, and it's feeling the feeling of it.
Because here's what I was doing personally. First of all, like I said, I was giving away all my power to people and circumstances outside of me. I was trying to feel grateful for things I did not have any control over, and, and I also did not for even one second actually try to feel the feeling of gratitude.
I was saying the words and going through the motions and making these lists of things that I was, quote-unquote, grateful for while feeling the actual emotions of bitterness, frustration, anger, obligation, being trapped, all the, all the things that, that kept me there, meaning kept me there emotionally. I ended up quitting that job after barely a year and a half be- for lots of reasons, not the least of which is that I became a personal trainer.
I started my own business. I moved on to much bigger and better things, some of which was not really because of the gratitude journaling, but was definitely because of actually another part of The Daily 3 framework, which was future self-journaling. I just saw myself being able to do something different, better, bigger, more for myself.
That's slightly off topic, though. Here's what I'm gonna tell you about changing your gratitude journaling into what I call success journaling. And by the way, if you have not already watched the master class where I teach all about The Daily 3 framework, I am gonna offer you that to really help you see and understand what the nuances are.
And during the master class, which is completely free, and there's a link in either the show notes or the description wherever you're watching or listening, I really walk you through exactly how to get out of your head, just the writing part of it, doing the... You know, going through the motions of I'm writing these sentences like, "I am so grateful for," and truly dropping into your body to feel the emotion of, if not gratitude specifically, something else that feels better That act of getting out of your head and into your body is truly the shift that changes everything.
Now, before, long before I actually created The Daily 3, I started doing some version of this where I learned, again, before I really put formal language on it, before I really articulated my process, I started journaling in this way where it wasn't just my brain, it was a connection between my brain and my body Again, I will really explain this very thoroughly inside the masterclass, but I wanna tell you what I got from it.
I started being able to, A, see myself as a person who had some agency in the world. I started understanding what I was actually in control of and what I was not in control of. I stopped looking for outside validation, and this one honestly might be the biggest shift in my life. When I started gratitude journaling in a new way, not just gratitude journaling the way I had been, the way that was not working, but in the way that I now refer to as success journaling, I stopped looking for other people to tell me I was doing a good job because I was telling myself I was doing a good job.
Which also led to the, the corollary of not being so disappointed and just crushed when other people didn't validate me, when other people d- didn't notice that I was doing a good job, when other people kind of didn't care that I was doing what I had asked myself to do. The daily self-validation of success journaling within The Daily 3 framework completely changed how I interact with other people.
Other people really, honestly, truly get to be themselves. They get to be self-involved and not notice me because I am noticing myself. I stopped blaming other people for my moods. I stopped being constantly frustrated by everything. What I feel now that I am success journaling instead of gratitude journaling is a kind of grounded confidence that simply was not available to me when I was gratitude journaling the way that I used to be.
What I really wanna offer you, what I always offer you, is that The Daily 3 framework can help you move out of the frustration, and the spinning, and the procrastination, and all of the, the overthinking that you are currently doing With this subtle shift, this level up, this next layer, this deeper version of journaling where you get out of your head only and create the kind of brain-body connection that can take you all the way to your goal.
Because my friend, I really wanna offer you the big picture here, that thinking only, as you and I are so want to do is not the path. Rewiring your brain for success is this shift into using both your brain and your body while you are journaling, and that is how you can get your goals. My friend, I really hope this was helpful for you today.
Go watch the masterclass to really embody this shift, and I will talk to you again soon. No matter where you are on your goal-getting journey, I'm here to help. Get started by watching the free Daily 3 Masterclass to learn the simple journaling framework that rewires your brain for success. Move forward with confidence at your pace with one of my goal-specific guided journaling experiences.
And when you're ready for immersive exploration with fellow travelers just like you, you belong in the Get Your Goal membership. Find it all and join the adventure at getyourgoal.com.
