The Why Dive: Make habits stick with this digital journaling exercise
It’s mid-to-late January—a couple of weeks past the new year. Are your new habits sticking? (Did you set goals or resolutions?)
Oftentimes, we end up not sticking to our habits because we don’t take the time to dive into why we want to do them. Sure, there may be surface-level reasons that you want to do something. For example:
I want to stop eating sugar so my lab results are healthier.
I want to save money so I can go somewhere cool on vacation.
I want to write in my journal every day because some book told me it’s a good idea.
When we pick new habits blindly, they likely won’t last long. You need to get to the WHY behind your decision!
How many times have you gone down a path in life to discover it’s not for you? Or that it makes you miserable? Often, we get caught up in doing things or feeling a certain way that we forget to ask ourselves “Why.”
With the Why Dive quick journaling exercise, you’ll be able to gain perspective quickly.
The Why Dive is a quick journaling exercise
In a Why Dive, you ask yourself a series of questions to coach answers from within. Usually, “Why?”
You know how they say that any good coach or therapist just asks questions? They don’t provide you with prescriptive answers—because the answers are already within you.
Grab a copy of the Why Dive exercise in my Digital Journaling Bundle.
Write your goal in the first slot—this may be any belief, thought, or feeling about a goal or anything else.
Ask yourself why you believe/think/feel that.
Continue with why, over and over, until you discover your core belief. You can usually uncover it with about 5 why’s.
Once there, acknowledge it, explore it, and make changes to your course of action accordingly.
You may be surprised what you uncover.
From the exercises above, here are some sample deep core reasons why you may want to do what you set out to do:
I want to stop eating sugar so my lab results are healthier I can live a longer, healthier life and be able to enjoy seeing my kids grow up and be around and healthy for their children, too.
I want to save money so I can go somewhere cool on vacation fulfill a lifelong dream to be a digital nomad and work for myself anywhere in the world to experience true freedom.
I want to write in my journal every day because some book told me it’s a good idea I know I have a hard time connecting to my emotions, and with the help of my therapist and my journaling practice I’ll be able to explore thoughts, feelings, and emotions instead of suppressing them so I will be in control of my own mind.
Give the Why Dive a try, for any goal or habit you wish to accomplish:
Starting personal habits
Achieving business goals
Adding something new you want to try
Removing something that weighs on your life
Write your mission statement everywhere!
Once you figured out your deepest and most compelling core reason why you want to do something, use this as a mission statement on top of habit trackers or digital planning dashboards so you can be reminded of your mission statement every time you navigate to that page in your digital journal.
Having the core reason why you want to do something will help you stay motivated and accountable to yourself.
