My Life Binder Story

Several years ago (before I even started my blog), I had reached a point in my life that Jim Rohn calls "the day of disgust." I sort of stopped in my tracks and realised that I had just lived the same year twice. This really bothered me, but what bothered me even more was that it was a mediocre year. I had not achieved anything, I had not grown as a person, and I had not moved any closer to my goals.

I knew I had to change something, so every Saturday evening, I would pack my bag with paper, pens, and personal development books and drive into town where I would just sit in a cafe until it would close. I wasn't really sure what I was doing, but I had the firm intention to work on myself. 

I had stumbled across a few resources that helped me alot during this time - one of which was a "One Year Success Plan" program founded on the teachings of personal development guru, Jim Rohn. (Ever heard of him? Check him out on youtube. You'll love his stuff) Every week, I'd receive an email with a PDF that I could print out and work on. This print-out would cover different areas of what Jim Rohn called "The Pillars of Success."

I think this was my first exposer to the power of "printables". Having my thoughts guided by powerful questions and being compelled to put pen to paper and give shape to what I was thinking, feeling, and wanting was the beginning of everything! I had always known and used the power of goal-setting and personal development, but in those little CEO meetings with myself, sitting alone for hours in coffee shops, something was different. I was starting to grasp what it meant to take 100% responsibility for what I knew and where I was and what I wanted to change in my life.

And so, I fell in love with printables - anything I could print out and use in my Saturday night sessions. But I ran into a problem - all the paper was getting overwhelming. The content and my writing on them was valuable, but there was no order to it, and I found myself shifting through it all instead of focussing on planning, reviewing, and doing. 

And, as with all problems, the solution was simple. I bought a binder. A plain old, 3-ring school binder. I categorised my printables and slowly made my binder more aesthetically pleasing by adding dream boards and page dividers made out of pretty scrap book paper. My hunger to have "everything in one nice, neat place" was satisfied. Running out on a Saturday night to do all my planning was as simple as grabbing my binder and cracking it open as I sat down with my favourite iced white mocha (I'm still addicted 4 years later).

Magical things started happening. The dream boards that I crafted and added to my binder started coming true. The goals that I wrote down on printable after printable were getting checked off. I felt like I had graduated and reached the 2.0 level of personal development.

When I had first made the commitment to personal development, it was exciting to learn about all the things I could do to improve myself and my life, but I had still felt like I was floundering a bit, wondering, "Ok, this is great, but what do I DO on a day-to-day basis?" This question had instilled a tension in me that slowly melted away the more I used my Life Binder. I felt like I was cracking the code on how to actually put personal development into practice. I was reviewing and rewriting my goals constantly, tracking and assessing my progress, planning my months, weeks, and days with more focus and intention than I ever had before. I was getting results and I was becoming a better person.

Slowly my life became a reflection of my Life Binder and the more time I spent working with my binder, the more my life seemed to "work" as well. I figured out later that the Life Binder is really a Life Management System - like a planner, only it's structured to fit me and change with me. Whenever I find my life starting to unravel, I always find that I've also stopped using my life binder. I've learned to stop stopping and keep using my Life Binder as my constant compass and inspiration. 

Without my Life Binder, I don't think I would have carried through with creating the Secret OWL Society and designing a life I love. It has helped me chart my path and stay on it and I hope that it does the same for you too.