by Linda
Gratitude journaling is a popular tool used by coaches and consultants helping people to improve their health and lives. Studies have shown the benefits of mental and physical health. If you are considering whether this could be something that could help you then you probably have questions about what you need and how to do it. Gratitude journaling is actually very low cost and fairly simple.
You will need:
Writing implements: You could use a pen or pencil but why not increase the fun and creative aspect of your journaling by adding color and even texture. Different colored pens or pencils, as well as different styles, can make your gratitude journal not just a record of thanks but also a really creative endeavor.
Notebook: While you could use a piece of paper, keeping a special notebook for your gratitude journal ensures that you will know exactly where you are writing and allows you to review previous gratitude records. Your notebook can be a plain and simple one or you could splash out on a more decorative one. However, why not consider using a plain notebook and jazzing it up yourself.
By decorating a plain notebook or making a book from scratch you are making a greater commitment to the project itself. Your notebook will mean more to you and you will feel a greater connection to it when you use it. After all, if you are writing positive thoughts inside it, you also want to feel happy and proud when you see it.
Time Alone: By taking time out away from disturbances you are giving yourself space to think, relax, and write. You’ll also find that you enjoy the experience of being alone and celebrating those things you are thankful for.
Now you know what you need it’s time to discover how to do it.
Writing Time
Collect your journal and whatever you’ve chosen to write with.
Find somewhere quiet and that you know you won’t be disturbed. Your journaling time should be a time for reflection and celebration free from outside distractions for the best results.
Ensure you are committed to gratitude journaling and that you want to feel happier as well as more grateful as a result. There is no point in just going through the motions of journaling without creating a positive meaningful emotional experience.
When you write, instead of creating a long list of things you are grateful for put some real thought into it. Take time to write about a particular event and describe in detail why you are thankful for it. Remember to record how you felt and why.
Try to include people you are thankful for as much as you can, not just events. By including specific people and the reasons you are thankful for them you will create a greater emotional impact. It becomes more personal.
Include surprises and unexpected events as these will create a stronger sense of gratitude and a more significant emotional impact.
Time to Reflect
Set yourself a weekly date to write in your gratitude journal. While you could journal every day it may be more beneficial to create a habit of writing in your gratitude journal once a week. This will allow you to plan for it and enjoy it.
There are no right or wrong ways to keep a gratitude journal. Everyone’s will be different. However, it is important that you are committed to the process and the outcome, as well as make time for it on a regular basis.
This is the last article in the Journaling Series. I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read and can put it into practice as you go about your life. Remember, you can write all about what you’re grateful for in your business also. Writing in a journal is not just about your personal life. Make it interesting, you might want to go back and read your journal at the end of the year just to see how far you’ve come. I bet you’d be surprised by what you find out about yourself.
by Linda
Journaling is not just for 12-year-old girls! Journaling can be a powerful weapon in your get-it-done arsenal, and it’s easy to do. You can and should put all kinds of things in a goal journal, not just your thoughts and feelings on a given day.
Journaling is just one way of tracking your actions and successes, and yes, even your setbacks and failures. It also keeps your goal right in front of your face so you keep on top of taking action steps each and every day. It keeps all your ideas and revelations in one place so you can go back and review whenever you want. For example, if you are having trouble getting motivated one day because you feel like you’ve been working hard, but making little progress, going back into your goal journal is a wonderful way to help you see that all of those little actions really are paying off in a big way. So what should you keep in your goal journal? Start with these ideas and add to them as you see fit.
- Detailed goal--Write down your exact goal in as much detail as possible. Describe it in a way that makes you feel excited about what your life will be like when you achieve your objective.
- Your Why--Your Why is the big reason why you want to reach the goal you have defined for yourself. It’s the reason you are willing to take the massive action steps needed to change your life for the better.
- Massive action plans and schedule–When you make the plan for how you will go about reaching your goal, write it here. Writing it down is important so that you can track your efforts so you can see what actions are creating the most results.
- Braindumps--A brain dump is just a list of actions that you need to take in no particular order. Sometimes all the tasks you need to take build up in your head, making you confused about where you should start and what you should do next.
- Prioritize--After you do a brain dump, organize the tasks into a priority list and add them to your daily and weekly to-do lists.
- Daily to-do list–Write out your to-do lists here so they are always handy.
- Aha’s–As you make massive action, you will have inspiration or aha moments when something becomes clear. Capture those ideas here so that you can refer to them later when you are ready to put them into action.
- Journal entries–Yes, you should actually journal. Sometimes there’s nothing better than stream of consciousness writing to help you solve a problem or get your worries off your chest. It’s a therapeutic and inspirational way to work.
by Linda
Learning to express yourself through creativity is a great way to learn to live more in the moment than in the past or future. It’s difficult to focus on anything but the present when your brain is actively involved in creating. This is one of the ways you can live a healthier, more balanced, more fulfilling life overall. Today’s article is about Expressing Yourself Through Creativity.
There are so many ways to begin expressing yourself through creativity.
Here, we’ll discuss a few of them, but this list is by no means exhaustive!
- Look for beauty in everything around you. A forest full of trees holds beauty just like a city street lit up at night does. Beauty is subjective, and you may find that the things you find beautiful, someone else does not. That’s okay! The point of the exercise is to hone your ability to look for and find beauty in all places – beauty that will inspire your creativity!
- Learn to communicate effectively. You will have difficulty expressing yourself if you can’t communicate what you’re feeling and thinking. Learning to communicate gives you the power to express yourself with words. It allows you the freedom to capture and relate the ideas you have when inspiration occurs. There is no expression without communication of some kind.
- Find or make a creative home for yourself. It could be a room in your home that you dedicate to expressing your creativity. Maybe it is an art studio away from home, or a garden where you feel safe and unencumbered. Wherever you choose, when you get there, you should feel excited to begin creating.
- Take a step in a creative direction by deciding on a form your creativity will take. This never has to be set in stone, and this will change as you evolve. Maybe right now, it is dance, but later it might be drawing, journaling, woodcarving, or cooking. Don’t limit yourself! Try things that interest you, and if you find them fulfilling, wonderful! If you don’t, simply move on to something else.
- Give yourself time to practice every day. You won’t know if you really enjoy something unless you do it. Don’t let the fear of imperfection prevent you from the beginning. And realize that starting something new is always a little scary. The key is in not allowing that fear to stop you from moving forward.
Hopefully, these tips will get you moving in the right direction towards expressing yourself through creativity. Don’t let the fear stop you – just get started! Once you do, I bet you’ll find it hard to stop writing. Who knows, one day you may write a book about all the things you’ve learned about yourself. Hey, you never know!
by Linda
Life isn’t always the way we want it to be. All we have to do is to glance at the headlines to see that we live in very uncertain times. Today we are going to unravel 3 Ways to Stay Hopeful During Uncertain Times. I hope you enjoy the article and can relate to it in some aspect.
Here we are, at the job we thought was safe might not be there tomorrow. There’s always some natural disaster somewhere. And people seem to be more cruel than kind. Have you found that to be true? I have, and I don’t like it one bit.
It’s easy to get caught up in a negative spiral of self-doubt and anxiety. So, how do you stay hopeful and positive when around you all you see are negative messages and fear?
Be here now
By focusing on the present, you will find it easier to take a step back and act as an observer. By practicing mindfulness, you’ll see you can enjoy the simple things in life, no matter how bad things may seem. All worries and fears of the unknown can melt away if you focus on the present. Look for things in your life for which you’re grateful. One way you can do this is to start a gratitude journal, where you can write down your thoughts and get them out of your head.
Look for ways to exhibit compassion and empathy
Spreading hope needs to start somewhere. Begin with the one person you can control, yourself. By looking for opportunities to pay it forward through random acts of kindness, you then become the impetus for others to do the same. Your compassionate heart and ability to walk in another’s shoes will be the guide to those around you. And even if it’s not? You’ll have at least changed one heart – your own.
Do something
The person without hope becomes stagnant, preferring to hide from the world. If you find that’s the case with yourself, then it’s time to force yourself into action, even if you don’t feel like it. Get out of the house. Call a friend and suggest an outing or go by yourself. Find a green space somewhere because these places have been found to create calm and contentment in those who spend even a few minutes there. The goal is to find a positive action and embrace it, whatever that might be. Pick up litter, hug a child, do something that makes you feel good inside, and there you will find hope blossoming.
It’s so easy to get caught up in the negativity of the world around you. Only by actively seeking hope will you find it. By practicing these three steps regularly, you’ll find yourself able to look forward to each day, no matter what’s going on around you.
If we can help in any way, please reach out to us here. We’d be more than happy to help.
by Linda
You may not have journaled since you were a kid. Or maybe you’ve never tried it and don’t see the point. But, the action of putting pen to paper is an extraordinarily beneficial way to improve your life. Journaling is an effortless way to change your life when nothing is going right. Today’s discussion is about How Journaling Can Change your Life for the Better. So pull up a comfy chair with a cuppa and enjoy today’s read.
Discover what’s important
When you free write, you end up writing about the things that are most important to you. They may be things that you don’t even think of as that important but looking back over your writings later will give you a strong inclination of what you find the most rewarding in your life. For example, if you find yourself coming back to the idea of starting your own business over and over again, it’s obvious that it’s a dream that’s important to you. When your life is in chaos, you have less to lose, and you might decide to go for it and see what happens.
Track successes
We get used to living in a routine and frequently overlook the small actions we make that add up to beneficial changes in our lives over time. Journaling helps us see all the successes we’ve had, even when life isn’t going the way we want it to. Using a journal as a form of tracking our successes can bring us a great deal of comfort when times are tough.
Let go of old emotional blocks
We can share our deepest fears and worries in a journal. When we feel down, we often need a sounding board more than we need advice, and journaling gives us that. We can let out and then let go of past hurts and failures, our needs and wants, without having to tell anyone about them but ourselves. Writing is cathartic and can help us release old emotions and beliefs that are no longer serving us.
Find the answers
People who journal often report that they find the answers to problems within themselves by using journaling to tap into their unconscious. Each of us has the answers to every problem already inside of us and journaling is a way to access those answers in a positive way. It’s amazing how allowing ourselves to be honest and open to our struggles ends up making the answer we’ve been seeking so obvious – it’s all there in black and white.
Encourages creativity
Many people who journal find themselves writing poetry or drawing to express themselves. A journal is a safe place to be creative. There’s no judgment from others, just an open invitation to express ourselves in whatever way comes up. Allowing this creativity to spring forth is another way that our problems get solved because we allow our minds to be in a different, creative space that is open to all possibilities. Are you willing to try it?
In our next article, we’ll be discussing Why Writing Down Your Goals Boosts Your Chances of Success. Make sure you come back to read it.
