Identity Journaling Worksheet
This sheet gives you a timed writing exercise from the point of view of the person you are becoming. Writing specific actions, decisions and feelings from that view, several times a week, lets you notice whether the identity starts to feel more like your own.
How to use this sheet
- Set a timer for 10 minutes, and begin in the first person: As someone who..., I notice that today...
- Name specific behaviors, decisions and feelings, rather than general statements about being happy or successful.
- Write at least three times a week, for about a month.
- Each month, note whether the identity feels more naturally like you than it did at the start.
Part 1: Opening line
Write your opening line in your own words, starting: As someone who..., I notice that today...
Part 2: Timed entry
Write for 10 minutes. Include the specific behaviors, decisions and feelings the day brought, and how you handled them.
Part 3: Weekly tally
Tick each day this week when you wrote an entry.
Part 4: Monthly check
Circle the number that matches how naturally this identity feels like you now, compared with the first week.
- 0
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- 10
Questions to think about
- Which specific behavior in your entry would someone who knows you well recognize?
- Did any sentence drift into general praise for yourself rather than a specific action, and what would make it concrete?
For group use
Ask people to read one entry aloud and point to the sentence describing an action. If an entry has only feelings or affirmations, rewrite one sentence as something the person actually did.
Watch out for
Writing vague, aspirational lines such as "I am happy and successful". The entry works better when it describes what you did that day, in specific terms.
Scan to continue this practice with Io
https://www.ixcoach.com/start-coaching?surface=practice&slug=identity-priming%2Fidentity-journaling&utm_source=print&utm_medium=worksheet_qr&utm_campaign=worksheets
Sources: Pennebaker & Beall (1986), confronting a traumatic event, Journal of Abnormal Psychology. Evidence: Mechanistic reasoning.
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