JOURNALING is different than DIARIES where you record your day-to-day life and document some signifiagant events, stories or funny anecdotes.
Writing in your diary has its benefits. It can allow you to track your mood state, to record your successes and failures and what you got out of them and also to talk about yourself and what you like and dislike.
But JOURNALING means the practice that enables you to be clear about what you stand for in your life, your principles, visions and your plans to thrive and grow yourself whether personally, financially, socially or spiritually.
Have you ever talked with people or friends about their dreams or aspirations, and noticed how ambiguous they are about all those things?
How they know all about the tasks to perform at work, the bills to pay, the amounts needed to pay loans, domestic chores and so forth. But they lack clarity about their aims and direction?
I bet!
So when it comes to that kind of deep questions people often aren't clear about what they want from life, or what actions they need to take so they can achieve fulfillment. Clarity is crucial to orientate your action and organize your thinking process.
"vague thinking leads to vague production. Clarity breeds mastery"
Robin Sharma
Here's where journaling comes in. Journaling can bring you clarity and help you laser focus on your visions and plans in order for you to go further improving yourself and your conditions.
In one of his mastery sessions (journaling deconstraction), international personal development coach Robin Sharma praises journaling and suggests that people answer some thought-provoking, visionary and introspective questions about themselves in order to figure out what they ought to do with their lives. Here's the set of questions :
1. What are your top 5 visions?
. How do you see your future? What is your conception of the best version of yourself?
How are you going to implement your ideas? Ideas you think could revolutionize the way you and people think?
What's your vision of the creative, wealthy, fit, parent, human being...you want to become?
2.What are your top 5 values?
. What are your moral values? What's important in life, according to you?
For example, some of my values are Gratitude, Respect of others and Integrity. Those values define me and orientate my actions and behaviors, and shape my conception of a meaningful life.
3.What's your big 5 for 2018 (or new year)?
. What are your big goals for 2018? And for each year you get fortunate to live?
Maybe you want to boost your career and you need to learn a new skill, or to develop your knowledge of a specific subject in order to maximise your chances of a promotion.
Or maybe you want to start a business and you need to take some courses or to take advice from successful entrepreneurs.
Or you want to become a writer, and post regularly on Medium for example, so you need to set your mind to write regularly and to hone your writing skills.
Whatever your goals are, you should write them down and define the actions that will make you closer to achieve them.
4.What do you want your life to stand for?
. What are the key ideas or values that summurise your life? That make life meaningful to you?
My life stands for devotion, love, learning and sharing with others.
What about you?
5.What are the 5 things that make you happiest?
. Being loved by my children and parents, learning new and useful things and getting results from hard work and massive actions are from the top list of what makes me very happy and proud.
Try to think about what makes you happy and glad, write it in your journal and try to do more of it to continue riding the wave of happiness.
6.Who are the 7 people you would most like to meet to lift your game so you own your marketplace?
. Who are the titans who inspire you? Who make you desire success and fulfillment? Who are the ones you would like to have as mentors and coaches so you thrive and belong to the world class?
I would like to meet Cristiano Ronaldo to learn from his discipline and mental toughness. Also I would like to meet Warren Buffet to learn financial wisdom. Elon Musk to learn how to push my limits and mentalblocks. The list can go on and forth.
7.What are the 3 foods that fuel your energy?
. What are the foods or meals that boost you activity? And give you the most energy and strength?
I found out some interests are less important than I was thinking. Money or career for example are less important than health, family or spiritual balance that matter most.
The joy of learning from a good book or writing an article or a piece of poetry that may add value to my life and people's life is far more meaningful than acquiring or purchasing fancy things.
I got clear about my values, visions, projects and goals and planned the actions required to reach my success destination. And so can you.
You can discover many traits and strengths about yourself and what lights you up as long as you take the time to explore the unclear areas of your thoughts by writing them down first.
When you don't write your thoughts down and think deeply about your projects, ideas, ambitions, strategies to boost your career, health, finances and relationships you will sabotage yourself, and get trapped in the vortex of doubt and procrastination.
You don't know what to do, you delay taking action, you skip opportunities for growth and improvment and above all you miss your mission and struggle finding your calling.
"The only thing worse than being blind is to have sight, but no vision"
Helen Keller
Rayan Holiday put it best:
“This is a fundamental irony of most people’s lives. They don’t quite know what they want to do with their lives. Yet they are very active.”
Rayan Holiday
So what's the next step? Here's what to do:
1) Take a Journaling Retreat
Take some downtime for yourself to be detached from daily work or home chores, so you can squeeze ideas out of your head in order to answer Robin Sharma's questions.
Take a short trip, or hang out in a forest or simply sit in a quiet room, close the door and write everything that comes to mind on paper for two or three hours. Try to unswer questions regarding where you are now and where you want to be in the futue.
You can also go beyond Robin Sharma's questions and write down other thoughts and ideas.
You don't need an expensive notebook, do the exercise on the cheapest journal you can have or on sheets of white paper. What matters most is to gain clarity on your thoughts and focus on your priorities. After that you can invest in a beautiful journal if you wish to.
2) Set a Timeframe to Journal Regularly
Squedule "Journaling Time" daily or weekly to write and organize your thinking and stick to it. Thirty minutes or an hour a day is quite enough to journal. But in order to get used to journaling begin by schedulig one or two hours per week to journal, then try to do it more often until it turns into an ingrained habit.
By practicing journaling clarity, focus and well-oriented actions will become your new personality traits.
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