The Practice: The Five Minute Journal
My coaching is grounded in gratitude. It's even in my email signature: grateful to show up for the leaders who aren't done. So when people ask what one daily practice I'd actually recommend, this is it.
Created by Alex Ikonn and UJ Ramdas, Intelligent Change — intelligentchange.com
THE PRACTICE
The Five Minute Journal is a short, structured prompt you fill out morning and night. A few lines on what you're grateful for, what would make today great, then a short reflection before bed. I've kept this practice for close to ten years now. You don't need this specific journal to do it, a plain notebook, a laptop note, or whatever you already reach for works just as well. This is simply the format that has worked for me, a lover of paper and pen.
WHY I KEEP AT IT
Big milestones get remembered. The hundred small things that made them possible usually don't. This practice is what catches those. A hard conversation handled well. A goal that moved forward an inch. A moment of connection with someone you love that would otherwise just blend into the day. Gratitude doesn't erase what's hard. It just makes sure the good doesn't slip by unnoticed.
There's real research behind this, not just a feeling. Psychologist Robert Emmons at UC Davis has spent over two decades studying gratitude, and his work found that people who kept a simple gratitude journal reported better mood, more energy, fewer physical symptoms of stress, and made more progress toward their actual goals than people who journaled about daily hassles instead. Gratitude isn't just a nice habit. It changes how present you are for your own life.
HOW I DO IT
My journal sits on top of the books on a table in our sunroom, a place I start my day, end my day, or pass through more than once in between. Some mornings it's genuinely five minutes. Some nights it's longer, especially if the day held something I want to sit with a little more. Some stretches I fall out of the daily rhythm entirely. But the journal stays right there, in plain sight, and I always find my way back to it.
ONE MORE THING
Gratitude gets stronger when it doesn't stay private. When I notice something a team member did well, a moment with a family member, or a specific way someone made a hard day easier, I try to say it out loud or write it to them directly. The reflection is for me. Sharing it is for us.
THIS IS FOR YOU IF
You're human, and you're living a life worth noticing.