Journaling – A Medium To Track Our Behaviour
In one of the previous articles, we had seen how Journaling allows us to take a closer look at ourselves every day. Such a close look enables us to comprehend our behaviour and take steps to improve ourselves. By Journaling, we can focus on the behaviours which we need to change while enhancing those which serve us well. We looked at this part in detail and those interested in reading that article, can do so here:
How Important is Journaling In Your Life?
In the above article, we also mentioned that Journaling could serve a whole gamut of benefits and looking at the past is just one of its many goals. In this article, we will look at how Journaling can be used to look at the present and plan for the immediate future.
So, let’s get started.
Looking at the Present and Way Ahead
Introspecting about the day allows us to identify the good and not-so-good behaviours that we had indulged in. But what do we do after that? We take actions.
Now, the actions can be segregated as emotional and physical, which we have to embark on to improve ourselves. Let’s take an example. If we conclude that one of our behaviours of procrastination is not serving us well, then we need to take some actions around it. But the mere thought of taking action is not good enough; we need to write it down. Why is that?
The answer is simple, if we aren’t tracking ourselves on the improvement part, then it is apparent that we wouldn’t know if we are doing well or not. And here is where Journaling helps.
So What Do We Do?
It’s simple - every night before we sleep, we make a plan of how we are going to tackle the next day. At this point, just focus on the next day and not a week or a month. You would be wondering why so, and here’s why.
The area that we intend to deal with is procrastination, and if we give ourselves more than a day to take action, then we would be procrastinating the step. It is just apparent. So, start the activities from the next day.
Also, don’t give yourselves a gargantuan action point which will discourage you from taking action in the first place. For example, if you were delayed on a presentation for two weeks, then don’t pile it up by saying you will finish it by the next day. Now, if you plan in such manner, then chances are that the new work that would come up will take your bandwidth and you will end up being disappointed at not completing your action point. And if the disappointments pile up, you will stop taking actions completely. So, be aware of that.
Let’s look at an example to understand this part better.
Journaling Action Points – An Example
So, our Journaling work on introspecting over our past shows us that we tend to procrastinate our work. And for ease of understanding, let this work be a fifty slide presentation. Our action points, therefore, will have to centre around the aspect of “procrastination”. We discussed that there would be a physical aspect, and there would be an emotional aspect. The idea is to have action points for both.
The emotional aspects around procrastination would be feelings like - too much work, or the task being difficult, or the topic of work not being attractive. This is another reason why you should not pile up your job to finish something in a day, as these emotional aspects would make it difficult for you to follow through.
Now, the physical part of the action point is pretty straight forward – to make fifty slides. So, what do you do?
The answer is making your action point to complete at least two slides out of the fifty by the next day. Take any number which will make you feel comfortable and allow you to achieve your action points. Once you do this and you get back to Journaling the next night, you will feel accomplished in completing the action that you set out to do the day before. That is a big boost and makes you confident that you could get the work done.
Then again make your action point for the next day, this time, if you wish, increase the number of slides that you want to complete. Keep doing it until you finish the entire presentation. Once completed, a sense of accomplishment takes over, and you end up not only physically completing your presentation but also emotionally accepting yourself as someone who gets on with getting things done. And that makes you stronger until the idea of procrastination fizzles out.
So, that’s how you do it plain and straightforward.
That’s All About Journaling for Improvement
In addition to our previous article, we see that we can use Journaling to improve over our perceived shortcomings. This kind of action points allows us to improve day-in-and-day-out, thereby becoming a better image of ourselves.
I hope the article gave your perspective and hope it helps in improvement. If you have questions, feel free to post them in the comment section, and I will be happy to answer them.
Thanks for stopping by! 😊
Image Courtesy: Pixabay
Nice 👌