What's Stopping You?: Why Smart People Don't Always Reach Their Potential, and How You Can

Start a Diary

The CBT literature, however, contained one nugget that was to transform my perceptions and evaluations overnight. It was a bullet point tucked away on an inside page under the heading: CBT – the work. It stated that “the therapist may ask you to keep a diary, to help identify patterns and thoughts, emotions, physical feelings and actions”.

This was a coincidence as – fed up with being in a bad or depressed mood – I’d wondered whether my moods were altered by my diet and had started jotting down notes in a page-per-week diary sent by a supplier. I’d started testing my moods against the time of day, days of the week, seasons and even the phases of the moon (easy in the better diaries). And, before long, I was no longer just writing ...