The Useful Thinking Journal

Additional Resources

This page provides additional resources and examples that will help you to use the Useful Thinking Journal to its full potential. If you are reading this page, I assume you already have a copy of the Useful Thinking Journal.

If you don’t have a copy yet, you can purchase one here.

You can click on the links below to jump straight to the content you want to see.

Examples of Events

The Useful Thinking Process consists of the Event, Reflection and then the Intentions that we set to improve.

In this section, I’ll focus on the Event, which is the situation that occurred that we would like to reflect on.

Below are some examples of typical events that leaders may reflect on, in each of the Event categories of Success, Failure and Opportunity.

Success

A Success is something that went well, and you want it to happen again.

Here are 10 examples of Success Events:

  1. A positive interaction with a team member, your manager or a customer
  2. A negotiation where you received a good outcome
  3. Delivering a successful presentation
  4. Successfully delivering bad news, or saying “no” to somebody
  5. Winning something, such as a new piece of work, or a competition of some kind
  6. Completing an excellent piece of work
  7. Helping someone overcome a challenge
  8. Receiving positive feedback
  9. Overcoming a daunting challenge
  10. Achieving a work or personal goal.

Basically, a Success Event can be anything you did well, that you want to be able to do again.

Reflecting on positive events like this can help us to understand and recreate the conditions where we can be successful more often.

Failure

A Failure is something that didn’t go well, and you’d like to do better next time.

Here are 10 examples of Failure Events:

  1. A negative interaction with a team member, your manager or a customer
  2. Failing to hit a target or achieve a work or personal goal
  3. Being unable to answer a question during a meeting
  4. Failing to meet a deadline
  5. An experience that made you look bad in front of a respected person
  6. Losing your temper in a stressful situation
  7. Acting in a way that you weren’t proud of
  8. Upsetting somebody, or making them angry
  9. Forgetting to do something important
  10. Failing to do something that you know is good for you, such as a positive, healthy habit.

Basically, a Failure Event can be anything that didn’t go so well, where we want to do better next time.

Reflecting on negative events like this can help us to prepare ourselves to succeed if a similar situation occurs in the future.

Opportunity

An Opportunity is something that was OK (not terrible), but you believe it could have been much better. You feel as if you missed an opportunity for a more positive outcome.

Here are 10 examples of Opportunity Events:

  1. A situation where you set yourself an easy target, instead of pushing yourself
  2. Asking for less money than you really wanted in a job interview (even though the money is still OK)
  3. Delivering work that was average, and could have been much better
  4. Any situation where you feel like “I should have said that”
  5. A situation where you stepped back, instead of putting yourself forward
  6. Missing out on something because you were busy or overwhelmed
  7. Failing to go “over and above”, when you feel like you could have
  8. Failing to take positive action because of feelings of stress, fatigue, anxiety or low motivation
  9. Delivering something later than usual, when you know you could have done it earlier
  10. A situation where you focused too much on avoiding failure, than trying to achieve success

Basically, an Opportunity Event can be anything where you felt you “left money on the table” – that is, you missed out on an excellent outcome.

Sometimes the difference between a Failure and Opportunity can be quite subtle, but it’s worth reflecting on these situations to start to be the best that you can be.

Examples of Intentions

The Useful Thinking Process consists of the Event, Reflection and then the Intentions that we set to improve.

In this section, I’ll focus on the Intention, which are purposeful statements that help us to focus our efforts in a positive direction.

Research has shown that there are three main factors that stop people from taking appropriate action on their goals. These are:

  • Remembering to act
  • Deciding the right moment to act; and
  • Having second thoughts at the moment of action.

Intentions are designed to attempt to overcome these barriers.

An intention is a statement in the form of If / When, Then:

If / When [something happens] , [I will do something or stop myself from doing something].

Intentions are not always so easy to think of depending on the situation, so below I have provided some examples to help you.

If he interrupts me, I'll remain calm

This sort of intention may be useful when you know that you need to have a difficult conversation, or you are dealing with someone who frequently gets on your nerves.

When I enter the room, I'll walk with my shoulders back and stand with good posture

This intention is handy for situations where you know you need to present with confidence, so it gives you something specific to do to provide that impression.

If the other person gets angry, I'll stay calm and listen to what they have to say

This intention is useful for difficult conversations that may be highly emotionally charged. It helps to stay grounded, appear in control and hopefully get a better outcome and prevent the situation from escalating.

When I arrive home, I will put my running shoes next to the front door

This intention serves to help you remember to do something. In this example, it’s to increase the chances that you will follow-through with a positive habit. That is, going for a run after work.

When I say something negative to myself, I'll remind myself that thoughts aren't facts

This intention is useful for trying to promote more positive thinking habits and reduce negativity, which can have the effect of increasing confidence over time.

When somebody asks me a question, I'll pause for two seconds before responding

If you notice that you sometimes rush to respond and don’t speak clearly, this intention can help you to pause and gather your thoughts.

When I feel anxious about the upcoming presentation, I'll remind myself that I'm well-prepared and that these feelings are normal

This intention can help to acknowledge negative feelings as normal, especially when you are going into a stressful situation.

Over time, this can improve self-belief and reduce the tendency to “beat yourself up”.

When I'm talking to a team member and I feel like giving advice, I'll ask them a question instead

This intention is useful if you are interested in adopting a coaching approach with your team. Often leaders tell people what to do, instead of asking to get their input.

This intention can help you to ask more questions instead of jumping to giving advice all the time (which can make team members rely on you too much).

When my team member talks to me, I'll close my laptop and put my phone face down

This intention can be handy if you want to become more present when speaking to team members. This can help you appear more approachable and empathetic, rather than distracted.

When it's my bed time, I'll put my workout clothes in my gym bag

This intention is all about preparing yourself to be able to deliver on a healthy habit.

In this case, you might have noticed that when you put your clothes in your bag, you’re more likely to go to the gym. This intention can help that to happen.

When the meeting starts, I'll smile and introduce myself

Sometimes we feel nervous when we’re going into new or challenging situations.

This intention gives you a simple strategy to promote the appearance of confidence and calm and start a meeting on the right foot.

When I enter the meeting room, I'll put my phone on silent mode

Often get distracted by your devices when you’re meant to be listening? This intention can help you reduce the chances of that happening.

When I notice the pink post-it note, I'll remind myself to listen

Sometimes visual cues can be effective in reminding us in the moment. In this case, the pink post-it note reminds us to listen to the conversation, rather than talk so much.

Visual cues can include post-it notes, symbols, physical items of clothing or any other simple objects that you can bring with you.

When I feel overwhelmed, I'll take a deep breath

A good intention for trying to stay calm in a difficult situation, and increase the chances that you’ll practice some self-care.

Building a reflection habit

Even though we know reflection is a positive thing to do, sometimes we forget. Reflection has the greatest benefits when we can do it frequently and consistently.

To reflect consistently, it’s best to try to make it into a habit, rather than having to remember it.

It becomes part of our normal routine, like a daily or weekly ritual, rather than something we need to think hard about.

Charles Duhigg is a prominent habit researcher and he recognises 3 important aspects to habit-forming. These are the cue, the routine and the reward.

Cue

The cue is the trigger that starts the habit.

It could be a location, time of day, a feeling, thought or a belief, or something that another person does.

When you are trying to form a reflection habit, choose a cue that works for you, such as “at 9am on Friday morning” or “10 minutes before I leave for the day”.

Routine

In our case, we’re looking to build a reflection habit, so reflection is the routine.

However, be sure to include other aspects that will make your reflection more comfortable and useful.

For example, “I will sit on the couch and write an entry in the journal” or “I’ll go to a quiet room and write an entry in the journal”.

Reward

Last comes the reward, which you give yourself once you have completed the routine.

This could be a physical thing, such as a coffee or piece of chocolate. It could be something like taking a quick walk outside.

However, it could also be a feeling, such as having accomplished something worthwhile or a sense of enjoyment.

Choose a reward that is satisfying for you, and ideally one that is healthy too.

Over time, the more that you complete the cue -> routine -> reward cycle, the stronger the pattern becomes until it forms a habit.

Eventually, you may not even need the reward any more (especially if it is a piece of food or drink), because you enjoy the routine itself.

This is when you have become intrinsically motivated by the act of performing the routine (which in our case, is the reflection practice), rather than needing some sort of external reward.

Answers to common questions

Below are some of the common questions I receive from people using the journal. I’ll keep adding to these as they come in.

It’s very useful to reflect on positive events as well as negative ones.

For a positive event, you’d circle the “Success” option in the journal.

The main thing to remember when completing the reflection for a Success event is that you want this situation (or something similar) to occur again in the future.

So for example, if you had an excellent interaction with one of your team members, you would consider:

  • What did I do that contributed to this outcome?
  • What would I do to get a similar or better result next time?
  • What specific actions could I take to improve the chances of replicating the success?

In this example, could it be that you chose a good location to have the conversation? Or perhaps it was the time of day, or how you behaved during the conversation.

Whatever the case, you’re trying to take a similar approach, so that you can continue to experience success.

Yes, this question can be a bit tricky.

Basically, you’re trying to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is not involved in the situation – they’re just watching.

Another way to think about it is as if you are a “fly on the wall”. In other words, you aren’t impacting the situation at all, you’re just observing.

Try to break it down to the actions you took in response to the event, or leading up to it. Try to be honest and impartial, without being too positive or negative.

  • Were you well-prepared or unprepared?
  • Paying attention or distracted?
  • Were you in a good or bad mood?
  • Did you listen, or talk too much?
  • Was your facial expression friendly or frowning?
  • Was your voice calm and quiet, or raised?

These are just some examples of some of the considerations to keep in mind. However, there are many more, depending on the situation.

Referring to yourself by your name or he, she or they is known as “psychological distancing”.

Research has shown that this can help you to distance yourself from the event you are reflecting on, so that you don’t feel the same intense emotions over and over again.

It helps you to be more impartial when you go through the reflection process, rather than getting too caught up in the situation.

References to research

The templates in the Useful Thinking Journal uses research-based techniques to try to improve the reflection process.

Links to a sample of research papers discussing the techniques are shown below.

Psychological distancing

Psychological distancing helps us reduce our emotional responses while reflecting on events that were significant for us.

This also helps to reduce rumination, which is continually thinking about negative events and experiencing the associated emotions over and over.

Paper: Orvell A, Kross E, Gelman SA. 2017. How “you” makes meaning. Science 355(6331):1299–302

Link to paper

Reflecting on positive leadership characteristics

Reflecting on positive leadership characteristics reduces depletion (energy, fatigue), enabling people to focus their energy on positive leadership behaviours.

Paper: Lanaj K, Foulk TA, Erez A. 2019. Energizing leaders via self-reflection: a within-person field experiment. J. Appl. Psychol. 104(1):1–18

Link to paper

Perspective broadening

Perspective broadening helps people to widen their perspective to consider other points of view, and also to realise that events are not so much unique to the individual, but may actually be experienced by others as well.

This helps to reduce rumination and emotional responses when reflecting on events.

Paper: Travers-Hill E, Dunn BD, Hoppitt L, Hitchcock C, Dalgleish T. 2017. Beneficial effects of training in self distancing and perspective broadening for people with a history of recurrent depression. Behav. Res. Ther. 95:19–28

Link to paper

Self-distancing

Self-distancing uses “fly on the wall” perspectives to reflect on past experiences to prevent rumination and re-experiencing strong negative emotions.

Paper: Kross E, Ayduk O. 2017. Self-distancing: theory, research, and current directions. Adv. Exp. Soc. Psychol. 55:81– 136

Link to paper

Reflecting on positive events

Reflecting on positive work events can reduce stress and increase work detachment, but does not provide a buffer from negative work event impacts on stress.

Paper: Bono, J.E., Glomb, T.M., Shen, W., Kim, E. and Koch, A.J., 2013. Building positive resources: Effects of positive events and positive reflection on work stress and health. Academy of Management Journal, 56(6), pp.1601-1627.

Link to paper

Implementation intentions

Three factors tend to derail people from taking appropriate action on their goals: Remembering to act, deciding the right moment to act, and having second thoughts at the moment of action.

Implementation intentions are if/then plans that increase the chances of following through on actions to achieve a goal.

Paper: Gollwitzer, P.M. and Sheeran, P., 2006. Implementation intentions and goal achievement: A meta‐analysis of effects and processes. Advances in experimental social psychology, 38, pp.69-119.

Link to paper

Mental contrasting

To increase commitment to a goal, we need a combination of Mental Contrasting (imagine positive outcome, then examine current state and obstacles to achieving it) and implementation intentions to improve the possibility that people will take action towards their important goals.

Paper: Oettingen, G. and Gollwitzer, P., 2010. Strategies of setting and implementing goals: Mental contrasting and implementation intentions.

Link to paper