I first developed this mental health journaling technique at a time when I was feeling scattered. It felt like things were all over the place, I was overwhelmed, and wasn't sure what to focus on.

There are a bunch of different models for the "pillars" of mental health, I like to follow these:

1. Diet

2. Exercise

3. Stress Management

4. Sleep

5. Sunlight

6. Relationships

7. Purpose/Faith

7 PILLARS. SEVEN things to think about constantly? That sounds like it's going to make me even more overwhelmed. That's exactly where I was at and where this idea came from. At the time, I was reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. He spent a good chunk of time talking about the value of making things automatic. Habits start out by requiring mental energy, but then then they become automatic.

I am really good about exercising. I have been exercising nearly every day for 5 years. That is not an area of my life I should be concerning myself with. That habit has become automatic.

So, I started ranking each of the 7 pillars on a scale of 1-5, and ignored all of the ones that are the highest - things that I already do the best on are becoming automatic. The ones I scored the lowest on were the areas of focus. The point isn't to stop doing the other things, it's just not worth the time and energy to stress over things that are going really well and don't require much mental energy from us.

The areas we score the lowest are also the areas that will likely have the biggest impact. Rather than trying to juggle 7 things in your brain, we pick one or two areas of focus for the next couple of weeks. Then sit down and reassess. Imagine you were 100% dialed on all 6 of the pillars, but were sleeping 2 hours per night. By just focusing on improving your sleep, you would make massive mental improvements.