The Huge Power Of Intentional Journaling
Journal with Intention
Some people really find it relaxing and positive when they sit down to write something down in a journal.
They might talk about the things they did that day, what kind of food they ate, or if that attractive neighbor said hello, but journaling can be used as a much more powerful tool than a collection of unconnected events.
In the next few paragraphs you’ll see a few tips on how to journal with intention.
Get a Notebook
There are some amazing journals out there, both in the way they are set up and the look of them.
But these types of journals are only good some of the time.
If you will be doing a lot of writing in order to journal with intention and keep track of your goals, you might want to look beyond hardbound journals, and go for more of a flexible notebook.
This gives you more space to write, and you don’t feel restricted by what a small and fancy journal can provide you.
You just need to have something that you can have with you so you can get to writing as soon as something comes to mind.
Depending on how you want to structure your journal, you might want to leave the first few pages blank. That way you’ll have a spot to list some of your long-term goals.
Long Term Intentions
After you’ve written out all of your long-term goals, you can look through them to see if there are any of them that can actually be handled in shorter periods of time.
Be sure to list out all of the steps to completing each of them so you know the details about each and how feasible it’ll be to get them done sooner.
Include with them any sort of positive affirmations that you can use to support your stance on why you believe that you can execute these intentions.
Include some positive self-talk that will keep you feeling inspired about the path you’ve chosen, because it never hurts to give yourself a little extra backup.
You’ll probably notice that some of them can be compelled sooner, so these should be set aside for another list that you write out.
Short Term Intentions
These are the goals that you’ve discovered might not take very much time to complete.
To make them easier to follow you can even categorize them by where they apply to, such as work, school or home.
It’s really important to take a look at the ones that have to do with your emotional wellbeing.
Take some time each day to make sure that you’re really taking care of yourself in those ways, and if you find that some of those areas are weak, you can make them a part of your short-term intentions.
Use positive affirmations with your short-term goals as well.
During the time you’re focused on these goals, it’s always a good idea to write them out every day so that you are able to stay connected with what you have planned to do.
Record varied reasons that you have for wanting to pursue these intentions. This means that you need to have something different until you can’t think of any other reasons.
Starting with Gratitude
When you’re planning to do a journal, starting with the things you’re thankful for is a powerful way to align yourself with a positive spirit of change and success.
Things can be rough sometimes, but if you’re living in a developed nation, then you still have it better than a large portion of the world.
It gets easy to lose sight of these things because so many people spend billions to get the population of the planet to consume goods instead of care for their own wellbeing or the well-being of others in any sort of meaningful way.
Talk about anything that brings you feelings of peace, love and kindness.
Don’t Take Yourself Too Seriously
The best way to have success with this kind of process is to have fun and consistent with your routine.
You should be relaxed with yourself in some respect though because life is busy and you probably won’t have time every day every month to do this, so if you end up having to miss a day of writing then it’s not the end of the world.
Just write it tomorrow.
You just don’t want to get in the habit of putting off writing for days at a time so that you can barely remember what happened entirely.
The worst thing you can do is connect negative feeling to your journaling process.
That would completely defeat the purpose that you have been aiming for.
The most important thing is that you are always moving forward and taking note of your progress. Learn to laugh at the things that you can’t change today, and forgive yourself for the time you need to take tomorrow.
Use Your Journal to Visualize Dreams and Goals
Have you ever had an experience that showed you how helpful it can be to write things down?
When you’re trying to get to a certain point in life, you can actually use your writing ability to help yourself to break down a list of things that you need to do to arrive at a desired result.
Some people have turned that way of life into services that help people to gain control over their lives.
Without organization, it’s easy to feel lost, but this article will show you how to use your journal to visualize dreams and goals.
Pick a Good Time
To get this whole thing started, you have to make sure that you have some time set aside so that you can focus on the task at hand.
It doesn’t matter what else is going on that day as long as you have some kind of quiet time where you can sit down and do some serious thinking and recording of ideas.
For some people, the early morning is a great time because most people and their family are still asleep, so they can sit down with their respective aspirations and get some things figured out.
Whichever times you pick should lend well to that task of prioritization of these aspirations.
Every person is different so if you’re used to a lot of noise and bustle, then you might not be as bothered by the presence of people while you’re looking at these dreams.
People who require more concentration however might need to find time during a day off, or a day where they avoid any kind of interaction with other people online or on their phone.
What It Can Do for You
What is your reason for journaling? People journal for a lot of different reasons, but the topic here is talking about something very specific that you can use as tool in a very important way.
One massive way that journaling can help you in you to attain your goals and dreams is through the ability you have to focus and problem solve anything you’re working on at the moment.
It can help you to pay attention to the exact things that need to be fixed.
When you write these things down, you’re giving your mind a tangible affirmation that will help you to make your dreams become a real thing.
The primary difference between real plans and imagined plans is that real plans involve taking steps to get to the goal.
Imagined plans are vague ideas that don’t have real focus at all.
The only thing you’ll usually know about those will be that you want to do something, but you haven’t spent any time trying to learn how you’re going to get there.
Another great thing about listing these goals is that they give you a chance to reflect on the things that make you feel gratitude in life.
Busy vs Productive
A lot of people fail to realize how much of a difference there is between being busy, and being productive.
People who are busy are always concerning themselves with random tasks they can’t utilize what will lead them to a central thrust that allows them to make real progress they can enjoy.
Productive people execute carefully reviewed plans that allow them to make leaps that improve their lives.
Much of this is done through recalling details repeatedly until the productive person feels like they know everything about the plan that will be taking them where they truly want to go.
There are certain things that your minds requires that will make you healthier. Much like a physical workouts, there are rest periods that your body requires.
Many of the same principles are at work during study and work periods.
You don’t need to be preoccupied all day. Balance is an important part of growth. When things become imbalanced, you won’t function as well and your work will suffer.
Disconnect Yourself
While you probably won’t always have a 7-day span to rest and replenish yourself, it’s good to try and have a day where you disconnect yourself from the rest of the world.
Especially when it comes to your work. You’ll need to find some time to get this kind of rest.
When you’re not under as much obligation, it would probably be a great time to sit and think about how you’re going to accomplish a few goals.
Giving yourself a rest will help you to be able to process things a lot more clearly once you’ve completed a rest period.
Find Somewhere Outside of Your Daily Grind
The best way for you to utilize time off to think or to rest would be to try and find a spot that is completely outside of your normal scene.
That way, you won’t have any emotions tainting your experience.
It’ll be a blank slate with no expectations other than to be able to rest. Take full advantage of this time because it’s going to help you to come back with renewed excitement for your projects.
Why You Should Start Your Journal with Gratitude
With all of the complications of the modern world, it’s easy to forget about all of the amazing little things in life to be grateful for.
It’s important to take some time to reflect on these things, because they can really help to put things into perspective.
If you’re reading this, you already have a massive advantage over a large portion of people in the world.
In the next few paragraphs you’ll see a short list of things that you can be grateful for to help you gain perspective before starting your journal.
It Puts You in a Place of Positivity
Journaling in general, and related to journaling your goals, can be a little overwhelming. But you always want to remain positive.
Even if you have a particular difficult day and use your journal to vent about that day, it is still good to finish off the journal entry with something positive.
If you are going to start a new journal more for your goals, you should start each day, each entry with something positive that you are grateful for.
This might be making a list of what you are grateful for that day, things in your life, or switch them up every day.
They can be related to that day’s journal entry, or more generalized lists. Just remember to do this before you start writing in your journal for the day.
Life Offers a Lot of Goodness
It’s not always easy to be the most optimistic person when you’re well connected to the affairs around the world, but life still gives people lot of little pleasure that you can experience each day.
If you’ve been missing sunrises and sunsets for a while, you should take some time to go check them out.
It’s interesting to think that all of those marvelous colors are produced by a visual combination of radiation and gases.
Animals are thinking breathing life forms that people can learn to communicate with on certain levels, and you can appreciate the amazing variety of sounds they make.
There are entire groups and societies dedicated to being out in nature, and it’s a known fact that reconnecting to nature and the ground are great things for people, so go out and experience it for yourself.
You may find that you enjoy it more than you could have expected.
Things to Be Grateful for
In the next few sections, you will get a few more ideas for what you might want to add to your gratitude list, though it should always be personal to you and what YOU feel most grateful for each day of your life.
You Have Good Water to Drink
There are a lot of places that don’t have access to safe water sources.
The people who live in those areas have to go through quite a lot just to be able to have water that won’t poison them, so they might not get to have much water for things at all.
In most developed nations, clean water is something that you can find on every corner, and it is usually even free, but despite the advancements in technology and science, policies created by people still loom over the citizens of some places.
It’s incredibly likely that you have a right to water where you live because of the infrastructure that has been set up by the local government.
Water makes all things in life possible. Without water you wouldn’t be able to wash your clothes, brush your teeth or even flush a toilet.
You Can Learn New Things
Do you stop to appreciate your intelligence?
Through you life, you’ve picked up a few things from school and any other situation where information could be gleaned.
Having this ability is important because it helps you to make the things in life you want a possible thing.
Anytime you’ve had a job, you’ve needed to learn things, and you’ve taken those things on to make yourself available to be an asset for that company.
Without your skill of learning, you wouldn’t be able to do that job.
If you’re the type of person that is always hungry for a challenge, then you’ll probably be able to open up a lot more doors for yourself by letting the people around you know that you are up to the challenges and ready to rise again.
What kinds of things have you been thinking of lately?
Issues Have Sharpened Your Resolve
There are times when life can kick you when you’re down.
When bills come too fast, and you’re not sure if you can make it, but you find a way to overcome it, the information that you learn there will likely become something you fall back on in the future.
Nothing tests you like a situation that seems to have no real answer.
Once you find a way to get past these snags, you’ll have another tool in your set that can help you to prevent things from going poorly in the future, or at least reduce the amount of impact that it has on your self-esteem and other factors.
Using Positive Speak in Your Journal
Do you insert positive things about yourself into your journal when you’re looking at your goals?
If you’ve been looking at these kinds of articles for a bit, then you’ve probably heard about the importance of positive self-talk and things of this nature.
Sometimes the world can make you feel so cynical that positive self-talk just sounds like silliness, but it’s a lot more powerful than most people give it credit for, and it’s a very important part of a process that helps you to reach your goals.
It Keeps You Pumped
One of the main reasons why positive self-talk is so important is that it keeps you excited for your goals.
If you’re feeling good about the things that you’ve set out to do, then there’s a better chance that you’ll keep going and trying when things aren’t going perfectly.
That’s why it’s so hard to get to new things when people are being negative towards you frequently.
When you’re writing out your goals, use the positive talk to keep you on page with the goal, and include some perks that you can have along the way.
If you begin to have some serious blowback with the negative part of your mind, then you can break out your secret weapon and use positive affirmations to counter with those bad thoughts.
Positive Affirmations and the Power They Have
The great thing about positive affirmations is that they can be as general or as specific as you like depending on the context in which you’re going to use them.
If you feel as though you might fail, you can tell yourself that, “Success is something I know I can create for myself.”
A large part of the reason why this matters so much, is because you can begin to replace those negative thoughts with more realistic views of yourself.
Another thing that happens is that you will probably begin to see patterns that you’ve created in life to distract yourself or to sabotage yourself in some way.
Even though these kinds of realizations are uncomfortable at times, it’s another important step towards achieving the things you want.
How to Begin
The best way to get this going would be to focus on one attainable goal for a week or two.
Don’t worry if it’s something that you don’t think you’ll be able to get done in that time.
It’s mostly just so that you know what to do and how this process really works. Write down your singular goal and be sure to include all of the steps that are going to make it possible to reach that goal.
At this point, it’s really important that you make some kind of plausible timeline for the next week that tells you what you’ll be doing to advanced towards your goal.
This helps you to get to a real-world view that commits you to getting to the next part of your personal or professional success.
You might find it helpful to ask a close friend or loved one of some kind to help you to retain your accountability to this endeavor.
Having someone there to remind can make it a lot easier to stick to things as well. They would be sort of like a spotter who helps you to stay focused and safe during workouts.
Make a list of the things that make you feel like you aren’t able to achieve the things you set out to do.
After you have all of them written down, spend some time rewriting them into positive versions of each reason, so that you CAN do it.
For example, you would write something like, “I don’t think I know enough to reach my goals” and then you would change it to, “I know more than enough to get to my goals.”
If you made a list of 10 or so, then you just want to pick 2 – 3 of these formerly negative statements that have now been transformed into dynamic affirmations that will help you to focus.
Repeat or write them every day no less than 7 times each. Start in the morning, and for extra effort, do it at night.
Be Patient and Persistent
A lot of the things that you’ve set out to do aren’t going to be the easiest paths to face. In all of these things always remember that you’ll working towards something and that you shouldn’t expect any instant results.
It’s going to take a lot of patience and persistence.
This means following through and observing this process that you’ve committed to.
Take each day at a time and be sure to remind yourself why you’re doing it, and that you’re entirely capable of doing it. The more you believe, more possible it will become.