How Important Is Journaling In Your Life?

Our Life on Autopilot

Most of us are running our life on autopilot without even knowing that is the case. For us, to be happy, sad, frightened or expressing any other emotion is dependant on the situation we are in; in other words, we respond to a situation emotionally.

Now, the question is, why do we respond to a situation in a particular way? And why is it on autopilot? For example, a black cat in the dark evokes fear in one person while the same cat in the same situation makes another person want to cuddle it. Why is this difference in emotion?

The answer is quite simple, and I am sure you would have guessed it by now – it boils down to how we were conditioned to deal with situations. A person afraid of a black cat, maybe, considers it as a bad omen while a person loving the cat would have had pets in the past. Interestingly, the things we learned earlier in life, leads us to carry on with the same emotions later in life; in some cases, right up to our graves.

While it is just odd that sometimes we carry emotions from what we experienced as a child, and that goes on to dictate how we react to a situation even when we are grown-ups. In other words, a child still controls us!! Read that again.

But the more important thing is why are we not doing anything about it? While the example of a cat is a simple one, consider your work life, your career or even your family life. There are behaviours which make you feel guilty, and yet if you were to face the same situation again, you would most likely behave in the same manner.

That's because your life is on autopilot!

What Can You Do?

Well, first of, knowing that your life is on autopilot, causing you to do what you do is a good beginning. Now, the next step is to understand what happens to you when you go through a situation. The thing is when you go through a situation you hardly notice things happening to you. You see it, retrospectively. And further, feel unhappy, disappointed and guilty about the way you reacted. This cycle continues on and on and on if you do nothing at all.

So, the question is, what can you do?

You can use one of the things that you effectively do, anyway. And what is it? Use your power to go through a situation retrospectively. Till now, you used the idea of going back to a situation only to feel unhappy with yourself, but now start using that to improve yourself. And this is where Journalling helps a lot.

Journalling is that practice, where you go through important moments in your day and capture it. It can and should carry both the good and not-so-good things in the day. That way, you will know what habits to cultivate and nurture further and what habits to let go off.

Journaling – The Way to Improve Your Life!

Journaling has a wide variety of use. In fact, it can, not only be used for re-living your day but also to plan your day or even envisage your future. Journaling is a potent technique, but for the ease of understanding, we will limit it to the idea of writing about what has happened.

But why do you have to write down about your life? Well, to go back to our real motive, we want to escape our autopilot behaviour which we do not like. And how do we identify the autopilot behaviour? By noting down our experience and then seeing the pattern in our response. It is as simple as that.

Without the power of noting down our experiences, we will keep on passing each day, resigning to the powers unknown. But the fact is that you have the power to change things, including your autopilot emotions.

How Do We Go About Journaling?

One thing that you need to keep in mind is to go through Journaling every night. Why? Because that is the time that your memories of the day is still fresh. Write down those memories about things you liked and disliked in your day.

Once you completed writing down the memories for the day, read through those that you did not like. Ask yourself, why did you behave in a particular manner, why did you dislike something that happened, and what change would have made you like that moment? Answer those questions by jotting them down in the journal and check if there was something wrong or something you perceived to be wrong. At least 99% of the time, it would be your perception more than something being wrong. And that's what you need to start working on. See, the benefit?

Now, there are many ways to deal with your perceived issues with a moment, and I will cover them in subsequent posts, but start with the Journaling process. Sometimes, the mere knowledge of your unwanted behaviour makes it go away. Think about it, how many times have people told you about your reaction to a particular situation, and the next time you behaved differently? The chances are that all of us have had that kind of experience. Journaling does the same thing. It makes you take note of you, and in many cases, things you dislike starts disappearing.

So, take Journaling seriously and do it every night regularly. Just a word of caution. Once you finish writing, go through your not-so-good stuff first and then through the good things before you sleep. Don't go to bed with unkind unhappy moments of your life. Otherwise, you will get up the next morning, unhappy, irritated and stressed. That is not something you want.

Remember to follow the steps:

Step 1: Before you Sleep, Journal Your Day

Step 2: Identify the good and not-so-good experiences

Step 3: Go through the not-so-good experiences and note down why you behaved the way you did

Step 4: Let the feelings sink-in and leave it at that

Step 5: Now go through the good experiences and feel the moment

Step 6: Conclude with the good experiences and go to sleep

So, that's It

That's how Journaling will help you to take control of your life, and make you question your habits and experiences. In doing so, you will eventually come out of the autopilot habits. And that would be the dawn of a new you!!

Image Courtesy: Pixabay