For example, I had been told I had to try to eat real foods (aka pureed and the like – not just my tried & true feeding tube formula) and see what would happen since I was coming up on 3 years of infusions, and they wanted to see what impact it had had. As someone who has relied on a feeding tube, meds, infusions, and spent many undiagnosed years in pain due to eating – this was the most uncomfortable goal I could work on mentally & physically – which made me realize it was the one I needed to focus on in my journal. 

By using the journal I saw that the thing that was holding me back from achieving my difficult goals was that I was not tailoring my goals to my strengths and what motivates me. 

As an enneagram type 2, my motivation is in helping others – making it easy to work on my businesses because I believed they could help people. Then, working on my running goal was effortless because it improved my mental state, enabling me to work on my businesses, which I knew would benefit others. 

What I realized was the problem was that I wasn’t connecting the goal of doing these eating experiments with helping anyone but myself and that was not the thing that motivated me. As soon as I started tying the goal to how it would benefit others, I was more motivated to brainstorm small decisions I could make and things I could do (that wouldn’t have me taking on the goal all at once) to start working toward the big goal. 

For one week, I took 1 small step each day to work toward my goal. 

• I vocalized it to my parents who lived with me, so they would know it was something I wanted to work towards.
• I called insurance to see what their coverage was for a dietitian.
• I called dietitians.
• I interviewed dietitians.
• I decided on who I wanted to work with.
• I texted them back committing to start.
• I made my first appointment.

None of these alone were huge big steps. They were tiny steps that didn’t involve me having to face my big fear of actually trying any food. What they were, were little steps I could take to get me closer.

My point in sharing just a little insight into my journey with the journal is to just highlight and share how this journal has personally really helped me, and how I truly believe that it can help you too. That’s why I really believe in this journal. I have used it myself and I have watched my life begin to change because of it. Spending 5 minutes every morning to just be intentional about setting out my small goals for the day and also reminding myself of my what behind doing them – has made me so much more motivated to actually do them. I hope that this does the same for you too.