How journaling and self-questioning helps me get clarity and be intentional (#1 writing challenge)
TL;DR: I’m currently on a writing challenge to write weekly a post about my personal development journey. In this writing challenge series, I share some of the situations that I encounter and what I do in those situations. If you find them inspirational and helpful, let me know in a comment below. By sharing your reactions, you help me understand if I can add value to someone else through my writing or consider other ways.
Writing challenge genesis — at first, it was the word. Or the thought?
I love writing.
I love writing stories.
Several years ago, I used to write regularly, yet I am not sure what stopped me from doing it. I guess as it happens with most of those little habits that please us, we tosh them down the list, allowing important things to take over. Often one of those important things is work.
Since I remember myself, I’ve always put everything on top of me. Everything means doing things for others or even my responsibilities (aka work) on top of my needs, instead of just balancing them. You know, having bits of each. There are limits to everything. We cannot just prioritise ourselves or prioritise others. We can keep learning about ourselves to make better-prioritising decisions, without the need for sacrifice — such heroes we want to be.
Journaling — my personal cathartic experience
Writing or better, journaling became a cathartic process in my personal development journey. It helps me get more clarity and wind down my emotional vulcanos. It helps me to rush less in a conversation and listen more. It helps me keep myself positive instead of going down the catastrophic lane. It helps me be better for myself first, and then for others. It makes me aware of my growth. It helps me venting, lashing out to others before actually doing it so. In fact, in most situations, if someone or something pisses me off, I do my best to take myself out of the case or conversation. Then, I breathe in, then I breathe out and take a break to write. Handwriting is the best as I cannot do it with my nerves’ speed, forcing me to slow down my angriness. I recently started to move from journaling only when harsh situations pop-in, and I feel like a volcano. I’ve started jotting down my ideas, plans, dreams, what I like, what makes me happy, what makes me proud, and so on — all the good vibes. Through journaling, I observe myself and my evolution. And when I do that I am more connected with myself. Such an important connection to keep. Once I am connected and aligned with myself, I am better. And that’s what makes it cathartic to me — the fact that I actively and aware observe the details that I carelessly ignored before and show how I change. So that’s how helpful journaling is for me.
Writing challenge — my brainstorming process and data gathering
But for this challenge, I wanted to make it different and not journaling. I want to share situations that I face or faced and how I overcame or managed them. Sometimes, some cases need more time to overcome. So I kept wondering for days what I could write about and when I should start it. I wanted to share thoughts and actions that are useful to others. I’ve brainstormed a lot, and I asked around. Most answers I got from close friends and family were:
- to write about what I like (and I was like you’re kidding me, right?)
- to write about what I don’t like (nope, can’t do that — there is almost zero inspiration there and lots of judgements, nope, I pass)
- to write about topics that I’m interested
- to write about my life experience (no wise woman here, yet!)
- to write about the books I read or about what I’m learning
- to write about my experience of living abroad
- to write about things I’m good at, such as marketing, social media, mentoring, learning or management
- to choose a random topic and see how much I know about that topic (how on earth could this help anyone else but me?!)
- to write about my challenges (meh, I might want to keep some just for me)
The lovely friends I have. Full of ideas. Truth to be told, I clicked with some, as you can see — those without comments. But I wasn’t convinced. So I went as I often do onto dwelling on the topic. After a couple of days, I start to brainstorm and brainstorm. At one point, I opened my journal asking myself: what on earth I could write about that is helpful to others?
Turning self-questioning in my favour
To my surprise, I had no answers but questions. Any brainstorming session starts with a question you might say. And your right to say so. Although what questions are asked can be a game-changer.
Remember: is not about the answers we give, as it is about the questions we ask.
And that’s what I want to share with you today and to mark the first day of my writing challenge :
the A R T O F A S K I N G Q U E S T I O N SNot ordinary questions, but those simple big questions, from which we tend to run away. I know. I do know that the internet is full of resources on that topic. But hey, the internet is missing one: my own experience with asking questions. So that’s the purpose of this piece of content to share with you my learning experiences. (by now I think you’ve figured it out with what decision I made, right?).
Continue reading, and you’ll find out what are these questions and how the process of self-questioning contributed to my personal growth.
When I said earlier, those big questions, I meant those uncomfortable questions. What are those questions? First, let me tell you that there is no rule to say that they are the same for everyone. Those questions we don’t mind asking our friends or peers when they reach us to talk about their troubling, uncomfortable or decisive situations. Secondly, ironically enough, for years, I fail to ask myself and provide an answer to those questions. But hey, I was awesome when I was doing it with others. The feedback was always the same: Thanks for listening and asking me those difficult questions. It helped me understand that there might be a new perspective. Now it seems way more manageable.
Do you know how smart your brain is?
Do you also know that it aims for the best for you? Our brains are brilliant. Mine, your, hers, his. It does not matter. And it works towards our benefit, even if it might not look in that way. But because we have a smart brain, it gets trickier than we might think to question ourselves in the same way we challenge others. The natural tendency is to avoid that, as our brain’s primary purpose is to keep us alive and preserve energy. Any extras mean a threat to maintaining life, which for our brain it means a higher risk to keep us alive if and when we get into the fight or flight mode. What helps to trick our brain is chunking things down and embrace them with pleasure — it takes less energy (motivation) to do what we like and what than to do what we have or should. On easy tip to trick your brain into that we LOVE questioning ourselves is to write down those questions or, if there’s a topic that requires more time (hence, my writing challenge topic brainstorming) adding those questions on a post-it so that you can see them often, helps. In this way, you’re asking those question in a physical form. You’re basically taking out of your mind and is always helpful to transform some of our thoughts into actual actions, right?
In my case, each time I manage to have myself answer these big questions, without mistake, I get results, no matter the topic. And I discovered how it helps me be more focused and more intentional. It helps when I observe that I’m slowly and surely derailing from my way. It works for every let-get-myself-back-on-track moment. But hey, don’t get me wrong — it isn’t easy at all. I mean, you know what they say: is easier said than done. Oh, boy, how I wish for that to not be accurate.
The last one is the most powerful because it is hard for me to associate the routine with joy or pleasure. Unconsciously I see every repetitive action I do, as a burden and a dull thing, which’s anything but beneficial, especially when the routine is critical for joining challenges or setting goals. However, this is another topic for another day.
Magic happens for me once I answer my 6 big questions.
Once you’ve answered those big questions of yours, you’ll find yourself not only in front of some answers but in front of a very first draft of a plan or strategy of whatever solution you’re after.
But hey, don’t believe me. Please don’t take my words for granted. Try it for yourself and see what happens. Adjust on the way if needed. Be flexible instead of rigid. There is no good or wrong when it comes to personal development. There is just useful or useless for you at that particular moment in that specific situation.
Let me know in comments if this article brought some value to your own personal development journey.
Originally published at https://metamonica.com.
