Impact journaling

by Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D.

I presume if you read this newsletter that you want to move beyond good enough. If you want another edge, one that will pack an unanticipated wallop, and get you moving with unanticipated speed in new directions, practice impact journaling.

By learning a few key points about how to journal you can break through to new levels in your career and relationships, your leisure and your avocations.

You know my rant. If you want bang for your buck -- things that make a difference -- stop using the same old tools. Remember Maslow's famous aphorism: "If all you have is a hammer, everything starts to look like nails." If you do not keep learning, you instead keep banging away attempting to make the world conform to your existing tools.

Journaling may not appear to be the shortest path from where you are now to where you want to get. Well it may not be, but then again it may be. What you have to do is be willing to do it for a while in order to find out.

If you do, you may learn to include non-linear and seemingly indirect journaling in your bag of tricks right along side linear tools like effective planning and goals. Impact journaling is without doubt a positive practice that fulfills Task One from YOWE.

Overcoming journalophobia

I used to scorn journaling. It wasn't action-oriented enough or so I thought. I could not for the life of me imagine what I could gain from writing about my thoughts and experiences. Wasn't having a diary something some kids did at around the fourth through sixth grades?

Yeah, yeah, I knew that there were therapists who praised journaling, but I was sure it was good for certain people only.

That was before.

Fortunately, due to a set of seemingly innocuous circumstances, I fell into keeping track of my observations about relationships. Wow! Presto, change-o. What began as a simple accounting led to a profound inner exploration that continues to this day.

Wham! What an impact! I learned more than I could possibly have imagined and about things I thought I already understood. Journaling became a structured date with myself for thirty minutes each morning, first thing, before accumulating any other busy-ness, to look inside and outside and articulate my observations. At night I journaled in a slightly different way for a shorter time.

When someone closes a story with "You had to be there" she expresses the idea that more occurred than she can convey in words alone. Well journaling is one of those "have to be there" kinds of things. You have to do it before you understand.

How to do it.

Here are the basics for how to go about impact journaling. Make a date, or series of dates with yourself to take the following steps.

1. Get an absolutely great book to write in. It might be leather bound if your budget allows, but no matter what this book must appeal to you aesthetically. It must please your senses. No yellow legal pads. Invest enough that you have a book that appeals to you and beckons.

2. Make sure that the paper is of high quality. Did I already say no yellow legal pads? It has to feel good in your hand and have sufficient weight and thickness that it is possible to write on both sides without the writing showing through.

Look for a while and be willing to spend extra for these qualities. Interestingly enough, you may save money. Much paper is so thin you cannot write on both sides. Do the math. It costs twice as much as it seems.

You are not going to find what I am talking about at Office Depot, or many typical chain store stationers. American paper is in general appalling, unpleasant to the touch and to the eye. And each year it gets thinner and more execrable. In general, avoid it.

3. Get an excellent writing instrument. Fountain pens from the thirties are an excellent choice but they now bring a high price. Short of that investment find something that feels good in your hand, and looks good. Then choose ink that appeals to you.

A good writing instrument is to journaling as silver flatware is to a good meal. You can eat good food from a plastic fork but you take the experience down several notches. Do everything to make journaling an occasion, like a fine meal.

4. Write at a particular time of day and for a period of time you specify in advance. That is, pick a time to journal and a length of time to journal. Journaling at a fixed time of day strengthens the habit and becomes a pleasant interlude with yourself to anticipate. Journaling for a fixed period of time forces the issue of going deeper.

5. Pick a general topic, like social observations, relationships, art, parenting, films, books you are reading, your dream, your curiosities. Pick it and then stick to it. A topic serves as a focal point. You will find that if you write about a topic day after day for years you will penetrate that topic to an unprecedented degree. As you write about a topic long enough you will write about the way it is related to your life in general, your career, your goals.

6. Write daily.

If while writing, you come to a flat spot and don't know what you want to say next, don't worry. It's no big deal. Just keep at it. Fill the time even if you repeat yourself. If you feel you are not getting anywhere at all, you are probably on the verge of a breakthrough that you may have been unconsciously resisting.

Worst case? Put down your pen for a moment, close your eyes, relax and realize it is for yourself that you are writing. Then start again.

What makes the impact.

 People have different ideas about journaling and what makes it effective. Some people, like my colleague and friend, Scott Love, use journaling to from time to time tap into creativity and solve specific problems.

Nothing wrong with that. But that is not what I am talking about here. I am referring to using journaling as a tool for investigating yourself. Find a general issue about which to write daily. Through investigating this topic you will understand it, and yourself, better. But you will eventually understand much more.

Here are my ideas about why this kind of journaling produces its big impact.

1. People are on the run but seldom know, big  picture, where they are going. Journaling provides the opportunity to step back and get a big-picture idea about where you are now and where you want to go from here.

2. We are drowning in information. It is at our fingertips. Want to know the temperature in Prague? You know how to get it. Yet we are profoundly short of self-knowledge and wisdom. Journaling, if you stay with it, taps into deeper understanding and wisdom. Journaling takes you beyond mere emotional intelligence and forms a tapestry of personal reflections that inform all your decisions and judgments.

Without reflection and contemplation we are highly likely to repeat what we have always done and are far more susceptible to blindly following instead of leading, acting on impulse or habit, instead of seasoning.

3. Journaling is an antidote to media saturation, gimmickry, and blind materialism. More exists than the material and deeper satisfactions arise from self-knowledge than from any television show.

4. Journaling, when practiced regularly taps your unconscious and your creativity in ways that are surprising and not immediately clear. Do you have to understand electricity to flip a switch and turn on lights? No. And neither do you have to completely understand why journaling can improve your sales, leadership skills or your sex life. But it may do all of that and more.

Two more kinds of journaling

Two topics produce what actually become different kinds of journals.

1. If you want to grow in your personal life but do not understand certain emotional reactions you have, keep a journal of negative emotions. That is, keep a running record of intense negative emotions you have in the course of the day.

Do not immediately look for patterns. As you do this over time, they will clearly emerge and you will begin to see what you have been allowing to set you off. Then you can intelligently plan how to deal with them.

2. A close personal friend told me some six months ago that she keeps a daily journal of encounters with work associates and the nature of the interactions. I added it to my daily journaling at the close of the day. It is invaluable. Try it and notice how much more attentive you become and what you can anticipate and deal with.

Powering up in the New Year: winter book suggestions.

 Another friend once told me that for him to read a good book was to have a conversation with someone intelligent who took the time to record his thoughts for you, his audience. He was right. People who adhere to the best seller list limit themselves. How about a Best Book list instead?

People sometimes ask for a list of my favorite books or what I am currently reading. Right now I am reading Pevear and Volokhonsky's new translation of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, while continuing to make my way through Proust's Remembrance of Things Past a few pages at a time.

I suggest that you read regularly and read good literature that stretches you and demands that you slow down and take the time to uncover its secrets. I can recommend the books above. Good books are another non-linear path to soaring beyond the ordinary.

~ ~ ~

from Defying Gravity: Resources for going beyond the next level -
a free monthly newsletter by Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D., 15 December, 2004

> available from his site Maximum Potential Project

Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D. is the author of the book :
Your Own Worst Enemy : Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement
     
     

 ***articles*****articles :.teen/young adult****

******articles: giftedness***articles: mental health
 

   ~ ~ ~

------home page ----------site contents------**books etc

 ---*****sections:---Women & Talent -----Teen/Young Adult talent