When you are working towards creating new habits it is important to have a way to track your success. Using a daily journal is the easiest way to create and keep habits for years to come.

Many people dread the idea of keeping a journal, but it is good for your health so take a moment to consider these positive benefits.

• Write out your goals! By writing out your goals you have a visual representation of what you are working towards.

• Becomes a permanent record – a journal allows you to be able to look back on tasks that you have worked through. You can see where you may have struggled or what allowed you to have easy success.

• Writing requires you to think through things. By slowing down to write down things it allows you to think things through. In my programs I encourage participants to keep a log of how much water you are drinking or what food you are eating. When you log what you consume each day you can start to see a pattern about why you may consume certain things.

• A journal can be your accountability partner. Even if you keep a journal just for yourself it does provide the accountability that you need to create new habits.

• Writing things down helps to make them real. As mentioned above a written goal is a visual representation of your goal. There is also something that happens in our brains called encoding. This encoding process makes it so that anything we have written down has a better chance of being remembered.

• Writing things down can help decrease stress levels. Our minds can get bogged down with all the things we try to remember. By having a daily journal habit you can ease your stress by releasing some of those tasks on to a list.

There have been countless studies over the years that show when you write things down you will remember them better. Neuropsychologists also identified the “generation effect”, this effect states that people have better memory for things they have created rather than things they have simply read.

It is recommended to use a pen and paper, but if you are more comfortable with digital that works. Find a method that works best for you.

As part of my 21-Day Program to help participants with cravings I encourage you to keep track of what you are craving and when. By having a written journal of this you can review it each week to figure out what may be causing unhealthy cravings.

Although keeping a journal daily is a good idea don’t ever put too much pressure on yourself. If you miss a day no big deal. Just pick it up and start again the next day.