As you might have noticed, I’m someone who has a lot of goals, who really wants to make progress on them…

and I’m also human.

And so all of this has been a journey, especially in the last few years since 2021, when life got hard, my dad died, etc.

I used to have boundless energy, which suddenly turned into a thimble full of capacity.

I have needed to pay extra, extra extra attention to what I’m doing and how I’m doing it.

As my capacity has gradually started expanding over the years (still limited though), it has taught me a lot.

It given me a little bit more of a fine tuned lens on things that I didn’t need as much support on when I was feeling 100%

Now that I’m operating on less than that,

I want to make things as easy for myself as possible and not rely on things that I can’t control to go perfectly,

like my sleep level,

my energy level,

my positivity level,

my mood and my health.

Everything is connected…

So I’ve been really paying attention to the process of how I do things,

because although life can’t be 100% optimized, I want to move in that direction.

To provide a softer landing for all the times when life is not 100% good or I don’t feel 100% well.

I want to move into higher percentages, even if it’s only 10% or something, hell, I will take 2% increase.

But I am really excited to share that I am finally narrowing in on how to bounce up a large chunk of percentage points.

I have made some recent changes to my life, and it feels like I’m on to something now.

The beginning

It started when I noticed that feeling unmotivated was a really big problem for me.

As a former workaholic speed demon, a sense of reluctance to do things is very foreign.

​And yet I noticed this persistent stuck, unmotivated vibe in late May. (You might have read about it.)​

And so I became really invested in trying to be more motivated since and have been writing about what I am learning on the journey.

In working on feeling motivated and fired up, rather than expecting that motivation to just be there (like it used to be),

​The core of these efforts is contained in a notebook, basically, a commonplace notebook which I define here.​

The book

This is a physical disc-bound notebook where I put important notes

that will get me fired up, help me advance my goals and other wise feel motivated to do things.

I call it my GET FIRED book. It’s supposed to be like a book version of drinking coffee.

I have collected these notes from my digital organization system

as well as written many things by hand.

I flip through this notebook daily so I spend time reviewing it every day,

thus reminding myself of things to help me get fired up and remain motivated.

Side note: although I have a high preference for things being digital because its so much easier to organize, archive and review over the long term…

When something is really important for me to focus on in the short term,

having it in physical form as well helps my brain.

That could mean printing it and putting it on my desk. I can’t look at a screen constantly and paper gives me pleasure.

So as I combine the benefits of the best of digital and paper worlds,

this has sparked me to attend to read my important ideas more often and

resulted in a pivotal change

The process

So what this looks like is picking things out to print out:

pieces of my notes and writing to read or review or highlight,

worksheets from classes made by others or things I make myself.

When I put printouts in my notebook

I add in my handwritten notes,

blank sheets to journal about things I want to dig into specifically,

handwritten lists like ideas for self care or

todo lists for the week for certain projects…

whatever inspires me, all in one place.

And every day I promise myself I will flip through it.

Because I am now looking at the right things, the right notes, each day,

it has helped me to move forward on whatever project I choose to arrange these things around.

I enjoy looking at it in the morning at my desk or outside on my balcony with a coffee.

It’s amazing to make something for yourself, like a book or a resource that you can hold on your hands tangibly.

We underplay how your notes or writing can be worth printing.

Paper and digital can be friends:

Using the best of your writings on your computer or phone, as well as things that you hand write, it can all come into one place.

And anything you have written by hand or annotate can go back on the computer later.

Print and digital work well together.

So they’re both intangibly part of my process.

This is my happy place.

What I’m Learning

And this is what my notebook sparked: a series of learning points.

Since I began my notebook dedicated to motivation, I added notes on Brendon Burchard’s book the Motivation Manifesto.

Burchard says motivation requires: ​

A. Ambition (a choice to do more) and ​ ​B. Expectancy (belief that what you want is possible).

I saw these notes a lot through reviewing my GET FIRED Common Place Book and eventually I couldn’t deny that optimism was the main motivation ingredient that I lacked.

Over time I began to accept that this was the cornerstone of my motivation problem:

I didn’t really have optimism. And hadn’t since 2021.

I think for me, my normal level of optimism is pretty high, and so

even if I feel middling optimism, I probably seem sunny from the outside.

But inside it is not enough. It didn’t feel right.

I trust myself that I know best what I feel and what I need as a unique individual.

In July, I started using a page in my notebook to track my mood daily, giving each mood a color.

I could quickly see that I rarely felt happy. Like actually happy.

And when was it last a regular feeling?

2020 when I fell in love with my husband, before my dad died.

Obviously I had every reason to feel bad after my dad died suddenly in 2021.

And I knew I felt worse.

But seeing it with your eyes is different.

I just thought, “right, that’s something that I want to work on.”

Given that any change requires me to do something and

That requires motivation and

motivation requires optimism…

Optimism seemed like a good place to start.

By the way not blindly optimistic. I really want to see whatever bad things I can avoid, because bad shit can happen.

Still it’s possible to think things can still go in a positive direction regardless.

The Optimism Challenge

To work on being optimistic, I set myself a challenge: a 30 Day Optimism Challenge.

For a while I was a bit aimless, but then I decided to announce it publicly in August.

​As part of this I taught a class and created a workbook that I could use, and share with other people​.

Printing out the workbook and adding it to my notebook gave my personal optimism challenge structure.

I followed the process step by step (utilizing what I know about forming habits as a writing coach.)

And I just finished the 30 day challenge last week.

Over this past month, I tracked a noticeable increase in my optimism level.

I tracked my optimism levels every day and took notes.

In addition to daily tracking I also did a weekly review

specifically exploring what was hard and easy about being optimistic that week and

what I could do or change the next week.

If you’ve never had a practice of reviewing your week with a series of questions, it can be a wonderful way to lock in memories, and learn from your experiences.

Adding questions to that review week after week to inquire about the changes you want to make, is a game changer.

I even have transcribed much of what I wrote down and added it to my digital archive

so that I never forget the insights I have been learning in this process.

I especially like to transcribe my weekly reviews.

I usually prefer to read these out loud into a transcription app several weeks later because it helps me remember it better longterm.

I can remind myself of the powerful insights that I began to forget

(it is amazing how quickly that forgetting happens, none of us are immune!)

For instance as I went into the final 2 weeks of the challenge,

I transcribed the reviews from the first half as a way to remember what I had learned so far

—reviewing the written weekly reviews.

Reviewing your reviews is not overkill. It is smart.

There are always pieces that pertain to goals, action steps, themes or topics that deserve more attention.

I want to keep track of my insights.

Sometimes what I read from several weeks ago can be applied immediately.

Some of that information ends up being added somewhere in an archive.

In the Summer Digital Organization Club, I shared how I have a note that serves as a hub for all of my goals for the year.

(That class and all classes from summer are now a bonus for fall members)

I try to update this central goal hub note whenever I write about goals

in my daily journal or my weekly reviews,

as all of that is enduring information I don’t want to forget about later.

I may not think about every goal I have day to day, but I will see it regularly.

Each month I reread that note about my goals, as well as my review from the last few weeks, month or season. I periodically review that kind of stuff.

And it feels good. This is definitely coming along in terms of a system.

Takeaways

I know because of this system I have, I’m probably always going to remember this time in my life.

There are dreams that have been lurking for years and feeling impossible that I am slowly turning into action.

I have a growing feeling in my life that I actually have some power and control over things (crazy I know).

I really can choose want to focus on and I trust in time I will see it improve.

I’ve noticed more optimism, more spontaneity, more joy, less anxiety, more hope and purpose.

If you are trying to initiate a change

I will share what helps me in terms of a mindset to begin:

It doesn’t need to be neat, it doesn’t need to be cute.

I repeat, to start it doesn’t need to be cute.

Sometimes you do it in an uncute way for a while and then it becomes cute.

My notebook was something I bought years ago that I repurposed and

gradually I’ve been adorning it in pretty pictures to display how sacred it really is to me.

If you want to write, get organized, change, or start system or program of some kind…

remember it doesn’t need to be neat and doesn’t need to be cute.

It just needs to be there so you can get started.

You can decorate and embroider your ideas, your notes or whatever you are working on…later.

When I reread my writing or notes, I can highlight or add an idea.

When I transcribe them, it inspires me to talk more about something or add new pieces of information.

When I go through an experience like giving myself a challenge, I see what works and changes each week and what doesn’t.

I tweak as I go.

Nothing about my process started perfectly, but I got started and bit by bit everything is getting better then it was before.

…

Hope this inspires you. If you need more, look into the resources below!

Click here to get the Workbook & Resources to

do your own 30 Day Optimism Challenge

Become the put together person of your dreams!

Want to get organized? Put ideas, notes, documents, + journals in order?

Make books, articles, emails, blogposts out of them? Achieve your goals faster than before? ​

If you are ready to put your random post its, notes, documents, articles, and ideas in one place

so you can make faster progress on your writing or business projects…

The 3 Month Fall Digital Organization Club is calling you!

​​Click to read more, you can still join.​

Thanks for reading!