Latest / Career Coaching with Fexingo: Professional Coaches, Career Counselors, and Guidance for Workers / How to Use a Career Journal to Track Progress and Decisions
Transcript
- Lucas: So you know how we've talked about career contracts, sabbaticals, side projects — all these structured tools to take control of your career. Luna: Yeah. Lucas: There's one tool I think is the foundation of all of them, and it costs nothing and takes maybe ten minutes a week. A career journal. Luna: I was hoping you'd bring this up. I've been keeping one for about two years, and it's honestly been more useful than any career coach I've worked with. Lucas: That's a big claim. What makes it so powerful? Luna: Because it forces you to actually look at your own data instead of just feeling like you're stuck or drifting. You start to see patterns. Lucas: Exactly. There's this concept from organizational psychology called the 'peak-end rule' — we remember experiences based on the most intense moment and the ending, not the whole arc. Your memory of a job is distorted by that one awful meeting or that one great win. A journal gives you the full timeline. Luna: So it's a truth-teller. I love that. Lucas: Right. And I want to get specific. A listener named Priya wrote in — she's a marketing manager in Chicago — and she shared her method. She calls it the 'Career Decision Log'. Luna: Okay, what's in it? Lucas: She logs every significant career decision — big or small — with four columns: the date, the decision, the reasoning at the time, and the outcome three months later. That's it. She said she started it after she took a job she regretted within six weeks. Luna: Oof. What happened? Lucas: She left a role she liked for a 20 percent raise at a startup that promised 'high autonomy'. Within a month she realized autonomy meant no processes, no support, and 60-hour weeks. She quit after four months. But when she looked back at her log, she saw she'd made the same mistake twice before — choosing money over structure, even though she always ended up unhappy. Luna: So the journal showed her a blind spot she'd been carrying for years. Lucas: Exactly. And once she saw it, she could actually address it. Her next move — she took a 10 percent pay cut to join a company with a strong operations team — and she's been there eighteen months, promoted once. Luna: That's a career game-changer. And it didn't require any fancy tool — just a notebook or a document. Lucas: Which brings me to another use case: performance reviews and salary negotiations. Most people walk into those conversations with vague memories. 'I think I did well on that project.' A journal turns that into: 'On March 14, I led the Q1 campaign that beat target by 12 percent.' Concrete data. Luna: I've done that. I keep a running brag document — I know that's a common term — but I update it monthly. It made my last review so much less stressful because I wasn't scrambling to remember wins. Lucas: And there's research backing this up. A study from Harvard Business Review found that people who regularly wrote down work achievements were rated higher by managers on performance, even when actual output was controlled for. The act of documenting changes your perception of your own competence. Luna: That's fascinating. It's like the journal becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy of confidence. Lucas: Right. But I think the biggest payoff is when you're at a crossroads. You have an offer from another company, or you're thinking about pivoting industries. Your journal is the best second opinion you can get — because it's written by a version of you who wasn't emotional in the moment. Luna: Let me jump in here because I want to share a quick honest thing. A handful of listeners chip in monthly through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's literally what funds making shows like this one — no ads, no sponsors, just listener support. If the career journal idea resonates and you want to help us keep producing episodes that dig into practical tools like this, that's where you can find us. No pressure, just wanted to mention it. Lucas: And we're grateful for every single person who does. Back to the journal — Luna, what's your personal method? How do you structure it? Luna: I keep it simple. Every Sunday I write three things: one win from the week, one thing I learned, and one thing I'd do differently. That's it. It takes five minutes, but over two years I have this rich record of my growth. Lucas: I like that. I'm more of a daily person — I do a quick line each evening before I shut down. But the key is consistency, not volume. A single sentence a day beats a long entry once a quarter. Luna: And you can tie it to your career contract or your goals. If you set a goal to improve a skill, your journal is where you track progress. It becomes accountability. Lucas: There's also a version for job seekers. I had a friend who was applying to roles and she kept a 'rejection log' — date, company, stage, and what she thought went wrong. After a few months she noticed she was consistently getting dinged on the same behavioral question. So she practiced it specifically and landed the next role. Luna: That's brilliant. It turns rejection from something painful into data you can act on. Lucas: Exactly. And the beautiful thing is there's no wrong way to do it. You can use a physical notebook, a Google Doc, a note app, whatever works. The act of writing is what matters. Luna: So if someone's listening and thinking, 'I should start one today,' what's the one piece of advice you'd give? Lucas: Start tiny. Don't try to write a novel. Pick one prompt — maybe 'What was the best part of my workday?' — and answer it every day for two weeks. Then add a second prompt. Build the habit before you build the system. Luna: And don't worry about making it perfect. Some days my win is literally 'I sent that email I was avoiding.' It still counts. Lucas: Absolutely. And in six months you'll look back and see how far you've come. It's one of those rare tools that gets more valuable the longer you use it. Luna: I'd love to hear from listeners who try it — what patterns they discover. Maybe we could do a follow-up episode with their stories. Lucas: Great idea. In the meantime, grab a notebook or open a doc. Your future self will thank you.