Journaling for Your Coaching Business – A Proven Success Strategy

Journaling for your coaching business is one of the things that will make a dramatic difference in your success. I’m proof! It literally took me from being a passive participant in running my business to being totally aware of every aspect of it.

As coaches, awareness is an important part of running a business. Journaling can open your eyes up to the realities of business, show you the flaws in everything from marketing to operations, and help you recognize that you are not guaranteed results by any action. 

Inside I dig deep into journaling for your coaching business. You’ll learn:

✔️ How to journal for your coaching business. 

✔️ 3 major breakthroughs you  can expect from journaling for just 10 minutes a day.

✔️ How to develop your own journaling process.

I started journaling about my business every day almost two years ago now. Prior to that, I would journal sporadically about personal issues or how I was going to FAIL at my business, but I never actually journaled ABOUT my business. About the details. My clients. Goals I set. My successes and failures. What I was looking forward to or dreading in my business.

It never occurred to me to journal directly about my business. And I can’t remember who it was or how the conversation went when I was first introduced to the idea of journaling about my business, but seriously, I’m sending all the gratitude in my body out to that person right now.

Because it was a game changer for me.

WHAT IS JOURNALING FOR COACHING BUSINESS?

Now, when I say journaling for business, I mean a whole lotta things.

Yes, I journal about my belief and self-confidence and how I want to show up in my business, but I also journal about my productivity and time management, strategies, my clients, marketing and content, this blog, and all sorts of stuff like that.

All of those things are part of my business.

I don’t only focus on my hopes and dreams and goals, or my irritations and doubts and fears. I focus on what I’m working on right now and how it makes me feel, and what I hope to accomplish with it.

This morning I journaled about the project I was finishing up and what it meant to me to be a part of it. How without this long-term client and all the referrals she’s sent me for the last two years, I probably never would have gotten to where I am now.

As I journaled, I felt that swell of gratitude in my body. The kind that warms you and brings a hint of tears to your eyes because you’re so overwhelmed at what you’ve been able to experience in your business.

And experiencing and seeing my business this way is completely different from how I used to see it. Which was as a series of actions that led to results I wanted, or didn’t. And that was the end of the story.

Instead, now, I get to play and enjoy and experiment in my coaching business without feeling like everything is life or death. Like it’s the end of the world.

Because that’s how I used to feel in my business. But journaling helped me separate the emotions from the facts of my business.

In the first year and a half of building this business, I was on an emotional roller coaster, and it seemed like I had no control over it. 

There were super highs that felt like flying, and miserable lows that felt like death.

I would swing from YES! THIS IS WORKING to I suck, I might as well quit.

Not only did I not know how to control the mood swings, but I also didn’t understand where they were coming from. I couldn’t see how even the little things were causing me to fly up and drop, sometimes within the same day.

The benefits I experience from journaling

When I started journaling for my coaching business and getting my feelings — fears, hopes, dreams, and dramas — out onto paper, I started to even out in my mood swings.

I started to catch onto myself.

I started to see that I would be incredibly happy and excited about my business one day, then down in the dumps the next. And I became aware of my apparent emotional bipolar extremes.

When I booked a new client, I’d be over the moon and positive and completely sure I was on the right path for my life.

When I wasn’t seeing results on strategies or no new consults were coming in, I’d be depressed and incapable of taking action to grow my coaching business.

The long and short of it is, I wasn’t in a sustainable pattern of growth.

I was swinging so violently between the extremes, and I could NOT see it for myself.

I just knew I wasn’t making progress and I was feeling crappy about it overall.

Now journaling isn’t an immediate fix. It takes a little time and consistency in doing it to start recognizing patterns in yourself.

But if you could take 10 minutes a day and write down how you feel and what you’re working on…after a few months the patterns will become clear.

That’s what I did.

How I started journaling

I started with 10 minutes a day.

And I noticed three very important things after awhile.

Number 1: Purging the emotional shifts was making me feel clearer about my business. I could make decisions without the huge cloud of doubt I’d been experiencing prior to journaling. I wouldn’t look at a decision as if it was going to be either the savior of my business, or the nail in its coffin. Basically, I was less dramatic about decisions. I didn’t treat each one like it was an ultimatum. 

Number 2: Bumps in the road didn’t weigh me down for long periods of time. If I experienced something crappy, or failed, or a potential client turned down my offer, it didn’t affect me long-term. I was upset in the moment, sure. But I didn’t drag it with me for weeks and use it as proof that I would never succeed like I had in the past. I didn’t use it to beat myself up and tell myself I was clearly a failure at life because that one thing went wrong a month ago.

Number 3: I stopped EXPECTING everything to go my way. Now I know this sounds a little off track, but stay with me here. Prior to journaling, I thought that everything I did was the answer to success. I thought if I put the time and energy into doing or creating something, then OF COURSE it would pay off. And if it didn’t, I’d failed. 

But journaling opened up my eyes to the realities of business. It showed me the flaws in the way I was going about things. I was forced to recognize that I wasn’t guaranteed results by any action I took. I could do my best, and create something amazing, and still people might not take notice. And THAT WAS OKAY. 

It was an opportunity for me to see and learn and grow and accept that I don’t have all the answers. That not everything I do on a whim or as a reaction will be successful. That I need to be consistent and continue to do the work even when something doesn’t go as planned.

After I discovered those things about myself and my business, I was hooked, and I took my journaling even further. But at first, my journaling was random. I’d write about whatever popped into my head.

I went back to check out my journal from those first days so I could give you a few examples:

My very first journaling entry was defining what success meant to me, and how I’d know when I reached it.

I also covered my inability to say no, perfectionism, networking events, and working on my birthday.

I never knew what I was going to journal about until I sat down to write.

But these days, my journaling looks a whole lot different.

My journaling process

I plan out specific things I want to explore for a week at a time.

Every Friday afternoon I sit down to plan out the following week, and my journal topics are part of that planning session.

I spent a week on time-management, a week on my purpose in life, a week on how I could introduce more fun to my daily work routine, another week on self-confidence, and so many other things like social media, websites, and all the strategies. Plus any new concepts I’m developing to help my clients grow.

This week is about what I’m grateful for. Hence my appreciation for my client and her project I wrapped today. Next week will be about Facebook Ads, since I’ll be starting to run them in a few days.

You might be wondering what I could possibly write about for a WEEK on all these topics.

But that’s the funny thing about our brains. If you give them an idea to chew on, they’ll constantly produce new ways of looking at it or solving the problems surrounding it.

My journaling pattern for a week tends to go like this: day one, it’s either confusion and frustration, or excitement and anticipation about the subject. Day two is some sort of philosophical reasoning on why the thing exists. Day three is an understanding of why others value it so much. On day four, I contemplate its role in my own business. Day five is speculating its impact on my business. Day six is coming up with a plan for implementing it in my business, OR making the decision to leave it out. And day seven is a review of the thing, my thoughts throughout the week, and what I learned by spending the time thinking about it consistently.

I don’t know why my brain follows that pattern in journaling. It’s probably something to do with my analytical brain. But that’s almost ALWAYS how it goes.

I’ve found that following this process with different ideas and strategies helps me get really clear on what’s driving me to consider adding them to my business — especially when I get caught up in the follow-the-leader game and see someone else doing something and wonder if I should be doing it too. Spoiler alert: the answer is always no.

It’s also SUPER helpful when there’s something I KNOW I should be doing in my business but I’m resisting it.

I love journaling for my coaching business

Sometimes thought and mindset work isn’t enough to help me move through an obstacle, and when that happens, I turn to my old friend, my journal. Or if you want to get technical, my ipad.

I use an app called OneNote if you’re techy or your brain is spinning at the idea of all those trees that died for my mental health.

It’s the single best thing I’ve done for my business.

I get to watch my brain, and instead of reacting to circumstances or situations, I get to choose the intentional responses I make.

If you want to start journaling for your business, I hope this helps. Also, I released a set of journal prompts that will help you get started. Because I want to see you succeed and grow a life coaching business that makes a massive impact on the world.