E641 | The One Habit Anyone Can Benefit From

In this episode, we dive into the incredible benefits of journaling. Doc Danny suggests that journaling is a simple and inexpensive habit that can help organize thoughts and clear the mind. But don't worry, this isn't about keeping a diary. Instead, Danny advocates for free-flow writing or drawing, allowing ideas to connect with one another through arrows.

Danny shares their personal experience with journaling, revealing that they turn to it whenever they feel overwhelmed or need to find clarity. Interestingly, Danny stumbled upon a journal from 2015 and was amazed by what they discovered within its pages.

Not only did it contain relevant to-do lists, but also a treasure trove of random thoughts and drawings. Journaling, it turns out, acts as a time capsule that allows us to revisit past thoughts and goals, providing insight into how our perspectives have evolved, what still holds importance, and the progress we have made.

What caught Danny's attention in his 2015 journal was the recurring theme of education, even though they had no idea it would lead them to teach business skills. This discovery highlights one of the many benefits of journaling - it allows us to express gratitude for our accomplishments while gaining perspective during challenging times. It's a healthy brain practice that is accessible to everyone, requiring very little cost or time. Furthermore, by keeping journals long-term, we can pass on our past thoughts and core motivations to future generations.

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Podcast Transcript

Hey, real quick before we get started, head over to Facebook and join the PT entrepreneurs Facebook group. If you haven't done so yet, we have monthly live trainings going on there. There's an opportunity for you to join in the conversation instead of just listening to what I have to say on this podcast, as well as the people that I bring on.

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So here's the question. How do physical therapists like us who don't want to see 30 patients a day who don't want to work home health and have real student loans, create a career and life for ourselves that we've always dreamed about? This is the question. And this podcast is the answer. My name is Danny Matei and welcome to the PT entrepreneur podcast.

What's going on? Dr. Danny here with the PT entrepreneur podcast. And today. I'm going to share with you something that I think is just one of the habits that I have developed that is one of the more beneficial things that I do and. It's really simple. Anybody can do it. It basically costs almost nothing.

It's very inexpensive and it really helps you organize your thoughts and clear the crap out of your own mind. And that's journaling. And I'm not talking about a diary, right? I'm not talking about, dear diary today, so and so was mean to me. If that helps you go for it. That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about journaling and journaling. For me, and this is, I don't know if this is what everybody does. I've never taken a formal class on journaling or whatever. This is a free flow, write out whatever's on your mind, draw stuff if you want to. And I have notebooks all over the place that are full of Things to that to other people would make no sense, random stuff that I'll write out with arrows that are connecting other things.

And I do this during the day. I don't have a structured time when I do it. I do it whenever I'm feeling like I'm a bit overwhelmed or if I'm trying to figure something out. And this is something that for me recently, I found a notebook from 2015. So this is eight years ago that I was journaling it, and some of it had like relevant things I need to do, like to do list stuff. And that'll be mixed in and pages with stuff that are just like writing random things down or drawing things. And I was flipping through it and it's interesting because one of the side effects to this is it's like a time capsule. So I think that a couple of really positive things come from this.

Number one, you get a chance to look back at your thoughts, which is crazy. If you think about it, look back at what you thought was important. Look back at what you thought was a, goal and accomplishments, whatever you want to call it, but you get a chance to look back at what you wrote down. At what you drew at, whatever was important to you at the time.

And you get to see where you're at in comparison to that. Were you right? Were you wrong? Is that still something that's very significant? Is that something that doesn't really make any sense? Does it something that aligns very well? And what's interesting about it is this sort of time capsule concept of looking at.

What did you say? And Have you done what you say or what you said you were going to do? And one of the things that I saw as I was flipping through this journal was this sort of core concept of Education. So I had written down basically, just like a Stream of consciousness of what's important to me?

What do I want to what I want to do because at the time you're thinking 2015 we're like a year or so into our clinical practice and It was growing And we know we wanted to, grow that and help improve other people's lives. But more than anything, what we wanted to do was to have a positive impact on people.

And that didn't necessarily just mean in the clinic. And this concept of education, for me, was this sort of central theme. It was education. I just kept writing that down. And then I had things that I wrote around it, right? So I had, get a PhD. Teach more. Classes for mobility wad, which who I was teaching for at the time develop a dry needling course.

It was all continued education related and things that I actually spent time on and actually really delved into to see if this was the right, right fit. I was very close to starting a dry needling course. I was teaching a ton for mobility water and I even stood up a tactical department for them.

I looked into getting a PhD and didn't seem like the right fit for me for what I was trying to do. And, but the core concept of education. Was what it came back to and what's funny is when I really look back on this eight years ago I knew that education was something that was deep down an important thing for me to be a part of to educate our peers to educate our You know our profession the clinician world that I'm a part of I didn't know That I'd be doing it in regards to teaching people about business.

I didn't know that I would be teaching people the things that I do today. I didn't know it was going to be sales and marketing and people and processes and talking to people about how they can manage the stress of entrepreneurship and the unknown, no idea. All I knew was education was important to me and I knew it then eight years ago when we're in the middle of starting our practice, I knew it had to be a part of what we were doing.

Maybe we were going to teach what we were doing at the practice from a clinical standpoint or whatever. It turns out we taught the business side of it. And it's funny when you look back at these sort of like breadcrumbs that you follow and the things where you end up. And when you look back at your thoughts in these journals, if you do this, how you're going to be able to say to yourself, wow, that's interesting.

That's interesting that I didn't know where it was going to lead me. I just knew that it was really an important thing. Or you might look back and you might say, Oh, my goal was, Hey, if I can make a hundred thousand dollars this year, like if I can make a hundred thousand dollars a year, like that's my financial goal of lifetime.

Like I've made it. If I can do that on my own and I have things that I've written down, they were like, Oh my gosh, like we totally did that and to have gratitude for the things that we have done. It's such a cool thing to look back at these journals and say, man, we did this, we've accomplished it. I feel grateful for that.

I feel, and it makes me feel like this, the challenges we face now are less of a problem. It's less significant because we've already come so far, but you lose perspective for that. If you don't have something tying you to where you started. So I highly recommend if you haven't. So if you know, if you never write anything down, if you don't have notebooks where you're just like stream of conscious writing things out, I really think it's one of the better practices you can do.

And it's such a cool exercise to do and look back on. And I've even done this with our kids and look back at things that we did. Now imagine I had the same notebook. This is eight years ago. And what about 40 years from now? I've looking back on this. With a grandkid or something like that.

Like, how cool is that to be able to share what was in your brain in a way that is saved in a way that is not digital it's so much more personal in so many ways to be able to say I wrote that and then that thing fucking happened dude, think about that. That's amazing. Amazing. And those days when shit sucks, when nothing's going your way, and you get a chance to look back on that, and you say, wow, look at how far we've already come.

Look at how much we've accomplished. Look at how much we have to be grateful for. Look at how little we knew at the time of where we were going to go, and maybe how little we know now, and where the next steps are. But to be able to see that, I think is a special thing. And it's something that anybody can do.

It's... Like I said, damn near free. What's a notebook cost? 10 bucks. And it depends on how much you write in it, but I usually have one for months. I'm not like writing out books worth of information every single day. It's just such a great little practice you can add in that doesn't take a lot of time.

You can do it anytime during the day, morning, evening, whatever. I'm not structured with that at all. I just use it when I feel like I need it. I use it throughout the day. It gives me something to do if I'm sitting and waiting. For an appointment or waiting on somebody that doesn't involve me just like scrolling through social media.

And I think it's a really healthy practice for your brain to, to get some of these things out. And it's such a cool thing to look back and see what you were thinking and see what. You're like maybe even limiting beliefs were at the time and where you are now or what your goals were and how you're able to achieve them or what things were important to you and see if you're still tracking.

And if you're not, it gives you something to go back to and really realize Oh man, why did I feel that way? Do I still feel like that today? There's so many positives that come from such a simple exercise that I highly recommend. Everybody does it. So if you don't have a notebook, get one, start writing down your thoughts in it.

Start, sketching some stuff out of ideas that you have or whatever. And and keep them and look back on them. And it's a really cool way to tie you to where you've been, where you're trying to go and the core concepts that are really driving you there.

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