when most people think of a journal they
probably think of a notebook used to record each day’s events journals are
often used to write down memories and experiences but they can be much more
than that we can use a journal to explore ourselves and learn how to grow
as individuals journaling has become an activity that is frequently recommended
by mental health professionals because it’s so useful in helping us examine how
we think and feel and in allowing us to understand how our own minds work but
just writing about what happened during the day in a matter-of-fact way isn’t
really going to help with personal growth journaling has to be done in a
more introspective way to be beneficial to our development there are a lot of
ways to journal for self growth where the following exercises should be enough
to get you started number one take time for gratitude it comes up again and
again with the topic of personal development and maybe you’re sick of
hearing about it but gratitude is major for happiness for those hoping to grow
into the kind of person who naturally feels happy most of the time rather than
the pressed or sad or frustrated learning to identify good things around
you is extremely helpful step there are a couple of ways you can practice
gratitude with your journal you could simply make an entry listing the things
that you’re grateful for or you could pick out a couple of things that you’re
thankful for and write a bit more in depth about why you’re thankful for them
and what they mean to you either way you’re taking time to focus on positive
things in your life and training your brain to look for them over time it’ll
become a habit both during your time journaling and throughout the rest of
the day and will result in a notable mood boost there are two keys to doing
this exercise first when you pick out things you’re thankful for
don’t pick vague things like friends or family be specific and pick out things
from your day so that you’re used to seeing things to be grateful for in your
day to day experiences second take a moment to really appreciate each thing
if you get used to feeling gratitude and not just identifying good things you’ll
be a much happier person tip number two is to consider the day’s lessons you’ve
probably heard the old saying you’ll learn something new every day and we
really do we just have a tendency to overlook small lessons and things that
reinforce lessons what we’ve learned before journaling is a perfect
opportunity to revisit situations you’ve experienced early in the day and
consider what lessons you can take away from them if you don’t have anything
specific in mind just start by writing about your day let’s say you’ll work
alongside someone you look up to professionally and you were able to
offer more to the project than they were as you write about the experience
consider what it taught you in this case you could have learned that people may
not be what you think they are or you’re more capable than you previously thought
once you’ve identified that to get further see what that lesson
means for you and how you might perceive things differently in the future because
of this realization learning is a great way to grow when you’re able to learn
from your experiences you develop in the way you see life in the way that you
feel at different situations to number three is to explore emotions examining
your emotions is especially useful for people who sometimes feel that their
emotions are out of control being more aware of what sparked certain
emotions and why can be a huge step towards gaining some control over the
way that you feel if you’re able to journal while you’re experiencing a
difficult emotion that’s great but you can also journal later on and
look back at how you were feeling right about the emotion you were in and the
emotions started including as much detail as you can so you can see and
identify what may be caused then when you found the situation act phrase or
whatever trigger it might be you can start to write through your thoughts
about why that thing might have provoked you maybe it connects back to a hurtful
experience or hit on a deep-seated insecurities you can examine the trigger
to work through your emotional connection to it then try to come up
with ways to ease your difficult feelings now and prevent them from
taking control of you in the future this process allows you to understand
yourself better so you can get a handle on problematic feelings and eventually
let go of them tip number four is stream of consciousness knowing yourself is
important for self growth because it helps you figure out where you can stand
to improve or change writing in a stream of consciousness style can be an
interesting experience and make you aware of things lingering in your mind
that you weren’t really aware of them before bringing these things to the
surface can help you get to know yourself and might even give you
insights into your needs wants fears and other things learning more about
yourself can help you make better decisions and what to do with your life
and help you find happiness stream of consciousness writing is very simple but
it can take some practice to really let loose and just give in to it
start the exercise by closing your eyes taking a few deep breaths and clearing
your mind then pick up your pin and start writing in your journal physical
writing is better for you than typing because it allows you to make words
bigger or smaller you can draw images and change the direction there’s much
more freedom to express yourself when you start simply write whatever comes to
your mind don’t judge what comes out though it may not seem important to
relevant but you never know where your thoughts will lead you so let them come
out as they are you don’t even have to write incomplete sentences or use any
kinds of formal punctuation just let your thoughts flow out through the pin
on paper when you feel like you’re done
look back over what you’ve written you might actually be surprised by some of
the things that came out take note of some interesting words or phrases that
came out and consider why those things might have came up they could reveal
something about you that you haven’t realized before tip number five is to
revisit a tough problem life is full of problems and how you handle them can be
the difference between moving forward quickly or getting stuck in them using
your journal to figure out ways to get through different problems that you run
into will help you become better at solving problems and this extends
outside of your journaling time too you’ll find strategies that allow you to
move through obstacles more quickly and general solutions that you can apply to
many situations when you’re faced with a difficult problem turn to your journal
start writing about the situation you’re facing including both the objective
facts and the thoughts and feelings that you have about it because these things
do matter writing allows you to access the
problem-solving part of your brain so as you’re right through information you may
have ideas about potential solutions if not look over what you’ve written and
consider the details further when you do come up with an idea write through how
that resolution may work and why it might work you might find holes in your
idea come up with alternatives that might work better by the time you’re
done writing you’ll have a much better idea on how to handle the problem than
you did in the beginning and maybe even a solid solution the more you approach
problems in this way the better your problem-solving skills will become
before I in this video I need to share two amazing resources that I feel can
greatly benefit you especially in the terms of journaling the first is my
friends journaling course he’s had hundreds of people go through the course
in the testimonials really prove the quality he’s basically the expert of
journaling and if you look up YouTube had a journal a whole bunch of his
videos come up so I highly recommend my best journal 2.0 there’s a link in the
description if you want to learn more it’s basically a course on how to
journal by one of my friends Clark and of course if you haven’t heard of my
practical growth Academy yet you who really need to check it out basically
I’ve created a private membership group for those who are serious about
self-development and growing themselves each week I’ll personally research and
answer your questions we will be reading a book each week where I create an
animated book summary follow along PDFs and actionable worksheets and each month
you’ll get a mini mastery course where I research and teach you 80% of the
foundational topics and 20% of the time it’ll take you to learn the cost to join
is less than the price of a book each month if you sign up now you’ll get a
special bonus also you’ll have unlimited access to all the previous content thank
you guys so much for watching and I hope you
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