Why You Should Do A Thought Download Every Day
My morning routine has evolved over the years and right now it consists of a short meditation, some stretching or yoga, and my own self coaching. As a certified Life Coach School coach, my journalling and self coaching is based on Brooke Castillo’s Self Coaching Model.
how does my thought download routine work?
I spend 5 minutes in the morning writing down all the thoughts in my head so I can start to look at them.
I run the Self Coaching Model on one of my overriding thoughts. I identify the circumstance/fact that has brought on the thought, then note down my feelings, actions and results from here. I often do this once for the default way I’m thinking, then once for how I would like to be thinking.
I note down the dominant emotion I felt the day before, and the desired emotion I want to feel today (for example, today’s proposed desired emotion is ‘inspired’).
what have I noticed?
I am grumpy in the morning! At first I felt a little worried by my thought downloads, but now I go back and have a little snicker at how irritable I was and how I didn’t continue feeling that way throughout the day.
In line with the first point, I’m learning again that my thoughts are not the truth. So if I feel a certain way when I wake up, or am thinking certain thoughts, I don’t have to carry those same ideas with me throughout my day.
It’s great to have an anchor emotion to focus on. I’ve been pretty good at sticking to my desired emotion for the day but I have had a few days where ‘overwhelmed’ was my number one emotion. I can then go back and look at how I got to a less desired emotion, and how I could have thought and acted differently to get to the emotion I wanted instead. (e.g. don’t run around frantically, instead take a breath and have a cup of tea).
I’m enjoying being more conscious about my thoughts and the day ahead. As Brooke says:
“The art of living deliberately requires that we decide how we want to live our lives and then practice living that way.”
If you want to jump on a free call and talk through your own thought download with a Certified Life Coach School coach (me!), you can book your free session here.