 Every now and then you stumble upon an exercise that really does make a giant difference in your life. Now, for me, a lot of those have been journaling, which is why I have so many damn journaling videos on the internet. Now, in this video, I thought I would share my updated journaling routine, because there are actually three rituals that I've stumbled upon, and there are really good life stories connected to them that I wanted to share for you here today. Hey guys, it's Alex Hyen here over at Modern Health Monk, author of Master the Day, and let's jump in. Now the first exercise is what I call chasing resonance. You know, when you think about a lot of the goals you want to achieve in life, whether it is finding new friends or dating someone or building out that side hustle, inevitably focusing on the goal doesn't actually make it more likely for you to achieve that goal. Like for example, if you want to write a book, what is more important to actually get the book written? Is it looking at a vision board with the book on it, with the number of reviews you want, or is it having a one-hour-day ritual of writing? It's the process, right? It's the process of writing. And if you want to find someone to date that you love, the process of going out and meeting new people is more important than visualizing meeting the love of your life. But this resonance exercise came from one experience I had. When I moved to Los Angeles, I was in a phase of my life where I actually wanted to meet new people, and in particular, I was feeling ready for a serious long-term relationship. So for about a year and a half, I did what anyone else would do. I tried to expand my friend group, even though it was during the pandemic. I tried to make new friends. I tried to use all the apps. And in general, what happened was I was trying to do everything that people kind of know they should do to meet people, and yet a year and a half later, I wasn't any closer to meeting a woman that I was really excited about and really wanted to date. You know, I had this one night where I'm sitting outside having a glass of wine, feeling sad because it's not happening, and I decide, you know, screw it. I'm just going to focus on living a happy life. I moved to this new city alone. So why don't I just focus on, you know, building a friend group? And why don't I focus on just the things that make me happy? So I picked up a very unlikely hobby, but chat the dancing, like salsa. And I went to this one class. And you know, over a few months, I found this to be a really fulfilling happy hobby in my life. And I found that it became like a passion of mine. And something that was social so I could meet people. And after three months, I found a little friend group bubbling up. Another few months went by, and then a woman walked into my Pachata class. We ended up becoming my girlfriend for years. So it made me think the irony of, you know, just seeking and searching a goal so hard, but then letting go and just following your excitement and then reaching that goal anyway. I stopped looking. I wasn't doing anything strategic to find love. And yet through following my passions, it all came together. And I developed this sort of idea of this thought of resonance, that when you pursue what you love in your life, not only are you happier, but it is more likely to connect to other things that you love. Friends who are happy. A romantic partner. When you work on a book because you're really excited, not just because you want the ego goal of being an author, you're going to love the process of doing it. And chances are, you're going to have some kind of success. So my first journey of exercise, I basically just write down what excites me the most and what makes me feel the most alive. And particularly what process that is. So for example, you know, I write down, well, right now, I'm really enjoying writing for an hour a day, my book. Or right now, I'm really enjoying, you know, picking up these salsa and bachata lessons. I don't know where they'll lead and I don't know what they connect to, but I do know this is something that right now makes me feel alive. Now a cool modification of this resonance exercise is actually the one I've put together in the free journaling worksheet, the first link below this video. So that free journaling worksheet has basically an awesome way of getting your life together, figuring out how to have the best year ever of your life and some of the habits and actual rituals and mindsets that are likely to actually make that happen. So you can actually just click the link below and download it. And then let's jump into number two. At the end of my year, a year ago, what was it that I remembered, right? Cause when I had this memory, the thought of when I die, what am I going to find fulfilling in my life? Like if I were diagnosed with cancer next year and I looked back and I would say that was so worth it in my life, what would it be? And I thought primarily it would be experiences, the things that have created memories for me. Now the problem was I looked back at my year a couple of years ago and I couldn't remember a single memory from the entire year. It's not that it was a bad year. It was just the year doing my final year of my medical program. I was working crazy hours. Every day was filled with work. I had a few fun things, but nothing really like stood out in a big way. More often things stood out in a bad way. So when I realized that memories were often the best part of my year and therefore memories are going to be the best part of my life, I began focusing heavily on experiences. So my next journaling exercise is at the beginning of each year, what are at least four experiences that will be memorable that I want to have? And they can be as simple as go skiing together with old friends. It can be having a mountain weekend. It can be going to some kind of conference. It can be taking a class. Or like for me next month, I'm walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain on a little spiritual pilgrimage. So I began writing down, what did I remember about last year? I went to Croatia with my girlfriend and we went bachata dancing all over and we were hanging with friends and we rented this yacht through Montenegro. What an incredible memory. And then I thought we went to Mallorca, one of the islands off Spain and we took this little Vespa and we were just cruising around the countryside getting focaccia sandwiches and just had this incredible memory. And we were with friends and we had these fun little adventures and we're dancing with some of the best dancers in the world. When I look back at the last year, that's all I remember. I don't remember anything else. So I heavily focus on, what are the experiences, the memories I want to have? And finally, the last exercise is the understanding of what I call obliquity named after the same book, why your goals are best pursued indirectly. You know, people have this fantasy, let's say of being a rock star, right? Because we think that what being a rock star is, is like you're on stage, you're jammin' out, millions of adoring fans, this big energy feeling. But what you forget is the process of becoming a rock star is hundreds of hours of sitting and writing songs and playing and boring hours in a studio and exhausting yourself singing. But the fantasy is of the event, of the day where I'm the rock star on the big stage. The reality is the process, which might not be something you're really passionate about. So when it comes to your goals that you want in life, the next journaling exercise is which process do I enjoy the most? Like if you want to be a YouTuber, do you like the process of sitting down, thinking of ideas, scripting, shooting, then editing? Right, does that process excite you? If you're not sure, try it for a day, right? If you want to be a professional writer, try writing one hour a day and seeing if doing that for three months is a process you inherently enjoy. If you want to date or build a business, if everyone's saying for dating you should be on the apps but you hate the process, maybe find another way to date that doesn't involve that. If it's building a business, maybe find the business that most excites you and the market wants as opposed to trying to do it the way your business coach says you have to do it. Maybe you don't have to do it that way. So this journaling exercise is if I had to be up three hours on a Saturday morning working on a project, if it never came to fruition, what process would I want to work on the most? Because that is ironically the process most likely to lead to your success. So three journaling exercises that have been profoundly changing my life this year, guys, I hope it helps you. And before you go, I have a related video on this exact kind of journaling thinking and way of improving your life right up here.