Ep 417 - What To Write In Your Personal Journal

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this work, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it.

To me banging on about the journal personal journal all the time. And I know I've touched on this a different times. But I thought well, I'll make it really clear for you and share you with you a bit of my journaling process. Now, I learned this from Jim Rohn way back when and he said I used to keep journals, scraps of paper here and there, you know, a notebook just putting together wherever I could find a bit of paper and writing things down. And then he said and over time, I realized, well, this is a space for my most private innermost thoughts for things that want to create in the future, this journal is about my life. So he just continued to upgrade to the point where he had this beautifully leather bound journal. And he spent a fair bit of money on it and also a pen as well. And over time, I've thought about that a different times I've used a digital journal and other times I've I've written in a book. But the more I do it, the more I'm leaning towards well now it's got to be a quality, quality pen and a quality place to write. So my pen is my my Audi not Aldi, Audi, as in the motorcar pen, which I got to track day I did a few years ago. It's nice and heavy, it just feels really nice. And I continue to buy refills, because I just love it. And my journal, I've, I've graduated to something nicer. And this is like a bound book, it's, this isn't one, I've just got to replace the crappy one that's still coming to the end of its life. The bound book, it's it has no no lines, because I do like to not just write words, but doodle and I often get in my meditation, I'll get an idea for a picture or an image or something else that no need to scribble and and, and they just feels great to write on something that's got a solid backing, the pipe is really nice, and a good quality pen that feels nice in your hand. And, and there's something about that process that really amplifies how it feels and the quality that I'm able to produce in that. So that's the first thing, it's really important to have a lack of any good tools, right? If you're not so good, well, then maybe the tools won't matter. But as you improve Well, why not? Why don't have all the gear for those who then watching the cricket. Talk about well, if you if you're no good at cricket, you got to at least look the part right? So it's the same thing. You just want to at least present in a way that's going to make you feel good about the writing process. Because ultimately, keeping a journal is a habit. And it's a habit worth keeping. And so one of the good ways to do that is had my experiences as good as you can tell, often, we have a cup of tea, sit somewhere that that I that, again, feels good. There's a window in our bedroom, there's a bench seat there and sit in the sun there in the morning and write my journal. And so what do you write in the journal? And how do you do it? So I've learned from heaps of different people over the years and just adopted my own headings based on those experiences listening from guys like Jim Rohn and Robin Sharma. And I'll share why I've included these different parts to keep in my journal and why it's important for you to choose what is right for you as well. And the first one is what wins Have you had for the day. Now have you ever got to the end of a week. And you've just thought, man today just wasn't today today and the week wasn't so good. Maybe I didn't niche maybe achieve anywhere near what you wanted to achieve. Maybe you thought that perhaps you you hadn't added enough value that you hadn't country repeated enough, they hadn't worked hard enough, whatever it is, when every day in your journal, you've written down your wins, two things happen. One, there becomes an unconscious desire throughout the day, the next day to want to find more wins to write in the journal. And the other thing that happens is, you by creating that truth, you get to the end of the week, and you look back at the weight you've had, and there is undeniable proof of the value that you've bought, of the wins that you've had, and how good your week has been. And the amount of times when I was doing this, back in the corporate days, when, when I wasn't always feeling valued, and wasn't always feeling like I'd given a valuable week of work, I'd look back in my journal, and I would see all the amazing things that I'd done for the wins that I'd had. And it reminded me of just how valuable I was, and just how valuable a week I'd had. And there's something about that process of, of solidifying it of creating truth of writing it down with a nice pen that has your unconscious mind, having a strong desire to want to add more. Now, the other important one I like to put in there is learning and ideas. So what have you learned what ideas have you come up with? Same thing, the more you learn, the more ideas you come up with, the more you write them down and create truth, the more your unconscious brain will be searching to create more. So if you're sort of person that's always good ideas. Great, get them out of your head, put them there, you can come back and reference them at a later time. Because I'm sure if you're that sort of person, you've got hundreds. If you're the sort of person that sometimes can struggle with that creative process of coming up with ideas, then this process will help to manufacture and build momentum, more momentum and more desire from that unconscious part of you to find more of that creative flair. I like appreciation rather than gratitude. Personal preference appreciation, as it suggests is a word of increase when somebody appreciates. So for everything that in my life that I'm feeling appreciation for them feeling gratitude for writing a piece on appreciation, so I can create space for more growth in that area as well. frustrations, getting out your frustrations is such a powerful way of using your journal. Something you're worried about something that's frustrating you something that's not going right. If you're trying to hold yourself to a habit, be honest, honest conversation I didn't. I didn't stick to my habit today. Tomorrow, I'm going to I'm going to be really determined and strong intention to make sure that I do that tomorrow. Because again, that unconscious party is like I don't want to write down tomorrow that I didn't keep my habit, I want to make sure that I did. I don't have as many days as possible when I'm writing that. And then the other big one for me is around celebration, or something wonderful that happened. So celebrating the end of the day, something that was just above just a win, it was something that was really inspired you or really brought a smile to your face. And the funny thing is, every day, there's something even if you think there hasn't been there's always something you recorded. And you same thing that that part of your brain will want you to have something wonderful the next day, we'll want something even more wonderful, because it'll love that feeling of writing it down. And then looking back at the week, looking back in the month, looking back at the quarter and saying wow, look at all those wonderful things that I was able to celebrate each day. It's what Jim Rohn called a personal inventory. So if you look back and you're doing a stocktake, you've got all the proof that you need of how well things are going. It is amazing how often that we all look at our life at different times. And feel like we are not up to the mark, that we haven't performed that our best that we're not making progress. And the journaling process removes all confusion about that. You'll be honest with yourself when you're not making progress, but you'll most importantly, you'll be able to see an honest reflection of just how well things are going. And instead of not giving yourself that credit, you'll be able to give yourself that credit and you'll be able to see the truth of just how much progress you're making. So find yourself a nice pen. Get yourself a journal. Any stationery store is going to have something good or jump online or whatever it whatever it is for you and enjoy the process. That absolute

life changer for me, like it really did at a time where I was hungry for growth and really did Don't get me heading in the right direction. And allow me most importantly, to feel better about myself every day, particularly at the end of those weeks so I can see just how far I'd come. Reach out if you have any questions. I'd love to hear what you come up with in terms of your topics or themes for your journal and what experience you've had with it. It's amazing what shows up what opportunities show up what ideas will show up when you can make this process, a habit that sticks.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform