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This is a review of the book The Transformation Year by Kristen Webb Wright, but it’s not a typical review because this isn’t a typical book.  Let’s dig into it…

The subtitle of this book is ‘A Year-Long Journey of Self-Discovery Through Journaling, Gratitude & Mindfulness’.  I’ve written here before about my passion for journaling and all its benefits, but this is my first journey into a self-discovery book based on journaling.  I can’t remember specifically how I came across Kristen’s book, but I think she might have mentioned it in an episode of her podcast.  The concept of it, which is a 365-day guided journaling exercise, sounded intriguing to me, so I decided to try it.

My journal entries can run the gamut from short summaries about my day to long brain dumps about the topic of that moment for me.  Indeed, many of my entries have reached several thousand words in length as I weave my way through my thoughts about them.  I don’t typically use writing prompts because I never found them to be necessary to generate my writing ideas.  Because of that, the concept of using the prompt-based approach in this book for a full year felt a little weighty to me.  Even so, I was curious to learn what this guided approach might draw out of me, because journaling is very much about self-discovery. So, onward I went! 

The structure of The Transformation Year

The book has one page for each of 365 days.  Kristen took the approach of numbering the pages instead of dating them because this is meant to be an informal year-long process.  If she had used dates for the pages and people missed a day of journaling for whatever reason, that can cause a latent type of stress (“Oh no!  I missed my entry for March 15!”).  Instead, by simply numbering the pages, you can start the 365-day process whenever you want during the year, and if you miss a day then you just pick up with the next page in the sequence when you return to the book.  The idea of dates and deadlines is removed, which is nice because journaling should never be a pressure-filled experience.  With that being said, the intent of the book is to help people build and realize the benefits of a daily journaling habit, so I’ve stuck with the ‘one journal entry per day’ approach.

On each page is the journaling exercise for that day.  There’s a motivational life-oriented quote at the top of the page, followed by short writing prompts related to the quote that are designed to guide the reader through exercises using expressive writing, gratitude recognition, and then a “mindful moment” that asks the reader to pause, reflect, and write.

That’s it!  It’s not complicated, and the consistent daily formula removes the barrier to entry of getting on with your writing.  The routine becomes second nature quickly, and I look forward to it every morning. 

My approach for using this book

Everyone’s approach for using this book will be slightly different because people journal in all types of ways.  Some do it with paper and pen, others do it digitally on their phone or computer using an app. Some people journal in the morning, and some write at night. Some have one journal that everything goes into, others maintain separate journals for all the different aspects of their life (work, personal, travel, etc).  The point is, the timing and medium of your journaling don’t matter, it will fit to this book.

My approach is to use the Day One app from Automatic Software.  I’ve been journaling in Day One since 2012, and have amassed thousands of entries in my journal.  I write about everything in my life in a single journal that’s end-to-end encrypted and synced across all of my devices so I can write wherever and whenever I want.  It works perfectly for me.

I start each daily exercise of The Transformation Year by creating a new entry in my journal with the title “TTY Day x” (the ‘x’ being the number of the day I’m on in the book).  I then put the text from Kristen’s exercise for that day into my journal.  I do this so that when I go back to re-read these entries in the future, I know her prompts and their context that I was writing for that day.  I add a hashtag of ‘#tty’ to the bottom of the entries in Day One so that I can search for these 365 entries later and find them all easily.  I can then do things like export them and turn them into a printed book if I so desire.  Day One has all of these features built into it, which is why I like the app so much.

Once the above is done, I write my TTY entry for that day!

My experience with the process of the The Transformation Year

So what am I getting out of this?  How is it impacting me?  

I’m only on Day 40 of 365 so far, but it’s been an immediately impactful experience, and continues to be so with each passing day.  The impact has been motivational enough to make me create a note on my computer specifically to write down my key thoughts that come up during each day’s exercise. That way, I’ll have them for easy reference at the end of the book/process, and it will be like a catalog of my own “greatest hits” thoughts from the 365 days.  

The key to drawing something out of this daily writing process is to be authentic and write truthfully.  I don’t pre-process or filter my thoughts in my journal.  Remember, you’re not writing a novel; you’re writing in your journal, which is a private space and is something that no person other than you will ever read (unless, of course, you share it with them).  It’s a place to write your truest thoughts without reservation.

During the process of following the book so far, many happy thoughts have re-surfaced, and some sad ones too. I’ve paused to reflect about how I think about the world around me and my experiences in it. Additionally, I’ve found that when I’m honest with my writing, sometimes difficult emotions come up that have to be pushed through, and I’ve done some of that too (perhaps processing certain things more completely than I did the first time). I’ve even spent time wondering about myself. What’s next for me? Where can I take myself next? This is the whole point of The Transformation Year process; it’s fluid and exploratory in nature.

With that said, some additional reasons why I get so much actionable value from this book include:

  • It drives commitment to the process.  I’m a regular daily journaler already, but adding in this TTY activity each day gives me an extra and specific outlet for digging deeper into what makes me tick.
  • I like the inspirational quotes when I read them in the morning because they’re applicable to everyone, not lofty ideas that are so vague that they’re conceptually out of reach.
  • My normal daily journaling doesn’t focus on topics like this every day, so they’re a good addition to my thinking and writing.  In reality, The Transformation Year hits topics that I might not ordinarily think about at all, but which I’m happy to greet and write about each day.  
  • I have a growth mindset, and I’m learning a lot about myself and how I think about things, and that makes me want to come back for more.  It’s like pulling back the layers of yourself to get to the deeper you.  Some things that I discover about myself are positive and reinforcing, and others are not (and point to areas where I might want to consider change). 
  • I’ve gained new and different insight into how certain events, feelings, and thought processes from my past can influence my present and future actions and behaviors.
  • The daily reflection process has made me realize how I sometimes push certain things in life aside for whatever reason, intentionally or unintentionally, without fully processing and distilling the meaning and value from them.  This applies to both positive and negative experiences.  (Don’t we all do this in life to some degree?) I would like to change this now-realized behavior of mine so I can pull more value from all of my life experiences.

In closing

To sum this up, The Transformation Year has been an enjoyable and enlightening writing and journaling process so far.  I would recommend this book to anyone who already journals or wants to try it, and who’s interested in themselves enough to take a little adventure deeper into their thoughts, feelings, and soul.  In other words, to get a bit more into what makes you…you!  Give it a try, and enjoy the process!

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