Orbital Velocity

Day 55: Boost Your "I Want" Power With Bullet Journaling

Bullet journaling is largely about capturing your intentions and giving you a better chance of converting them to reality. In my Day 49 entry, "Fitness Tracking Meets the Bullet Journal", I mentioned that I use "I want" signifiers -- but I didn't explain what they are.

In Kelly McGonigal's "The Willpower Instinct", she uses two concepts to describe how we control our own behavior. "I will" power allows us to do the things we believe we should, and "I won't" power prevents us from caving to temptations. She also describes a crucial third piece to the puzzle: "'I will' and 'I won't' power are the two sides of self-control, but they alone don't constitute willpower. To say no when you need to say no, and yes when you need to say yes, you need a third power: the ability to remember what you really want."

The ritual of planning your day each morning gives you a perfect moment to improve your "I want" power. Bullet journaling has become my preferred planning and tracking technique. A "signifier" is a special symbol used to highlight certain bullet items in your journal. An asterisk can be used to signify priority, a lightbulb can indicate a bright idea, an exclamation mark can highlight an important realization or inspiration.

I added my own "I want" signifier. If I were keeping a handwritten bullet journal, I would use a bullseye as my "I want" symbol. Within Evernote, I use the two-letter combination, "IW". This is a combination of letters that doesn't appear in the English language, which means I can search for "IW" and find only my "I want" entries.

I make my "I want" items as concrete and achievable as I can. When I'm trying to lose weight, I might write: "IW - To fit into all my pants again!" Identifying what you want in life and boiling it down to its simplest form helps you remember why you should draw on your "I will" power when you're waffling about whether you really need to exercise, or your "I won't" power when you walk past a candy jar -- or find yourself staring into the fridge, as I often do.

As a writer, I use "I want" notes to help motivate myself to move forward with a story idea, tackle a challenging rewrite, or submit works for publication. For example, this past November, I wrote this in my bullet journal: "IW - To arrive at an idea for an ending to The Curse of the Healing Kiss that I can get excited about." I had finished a draft of my novella, but I wasn't at all happy with the ending, and was having a hard time finding the drive to throw it out and start over. Distilling my frustration into a simple statement of what needed to happen next inspired me to roll up my sleeves and save the novella from becoming yet another abandoned dud on my shelf. Using this motivational boost, I sat down with some blank paper, brainstormed alternative endings, and picked the one that felt strongest. On Day 29 of Orbital Velocity, I mentioned that I had sent the manuscript to a developmental editor. Five days ago, I received his edits -- and he liked the story! I can't claim that this is all thanks to an "I want" signifier... but it certainly helped.

For championship-level thinkers, "I want" motivators are so deeply ingrained that they need no external reminder of their goals. For the rest of us, this kind of exercise can make a big difference. Writing the same "I want" note each day might seem silly, but it's an effective way to keep a destination in mind, especially when you have a horde of responsibilities, stressors, and distractions forever pushing you off course.