Journaling: Experience Self-Love for Business People

Today we’re going to explore how a simple practice that we’ve known about since childhood can help us create the life we’ve dreamed about, grow our businesses, and increase our income. All from the safety of our home offices.

Did you keep a diary as a kid? It was all the rage to write down your secret crushes and to document what you did every day during your summer vacation. First kisses, first parties, and best vacation memories were kept under lock and key so you could explore your innermost feelings without fear of being found out. I know I had a mauve-colored diary that I kept hidden in a drawer. I still have it.

These days as adults we journal with the same expectations: to share our secrets within a safe space. Work out problems away from prying eyes. To explore our deepest desires in privacy before telling our significant other.

Journaling, however, is about so much more than documenting your first kiss. The benefits certainly outweigh the excuses for not doing it.

Journaling: 5 Ways it Helps You

1. Relieve stress
2. Improve your mood
3. Become a better leader
4. Learn more about yourself, and
5. Boost your creativity.

And these benefits are just the tip of the iceberg. It’s likely that you may experience a different benefit and that’s wonderful. Journaling is an extremely private and unique experience that will be different from that of your friends, family, or business associates.

In this post, I will reveal the four main topics that most people journal about. I’ll cover how journaling can help you manifest what you want in life, instead of settling for something less. We’ll also cover how journaling can help you reach your goals, even if they seem out of this world.

Journaling: The High-Performing Entrepreneurs’ Little Secret

Journaling has been a popular technique among therapists and new-age gurus for many years. The idea is that diving into your feelings allows you to discover underlying issues and help you to resolve them. Some self-care experts even theorize that writing your deepest thoughts or fears and then burning those pages allows you to give up those fears to the universe, so they don’t weigh down on you any longer.

If you kept a diary as a kid, you’re one step ahead of the game. Kids are free to dream big in their diaries as well as track what they did each day as a remembrance. Journaling helps older teens decide which college is best for them or the pros and cons of choosing a trade career. But for some reason, many adults think it’s frivolous to “dream big” so they just settle instead of pursuing their dreams. Why is that true? Why do we settle for less when we’re capable of achieving more?

While we may not call them “diaries” anymore, many entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and high-level executives incorporate journaling into their everyday routines. Have you ever wondered how someLNCs seem to be constantly “up-leveling” and growing their businesses, bank accounts, and the way they show up in the world? Journaling may be their secret.

Journaling: Manifesting What You Want

Most successful entrepreneurs keep a daily journal (or several daily journals) to help them reach their goals and manifest what they want. Manifesting isn’t just for those who follow the Law of Attraction.

The term “manifesting” simply means recognizing the next step you need to take to reach your goal. When you break down your goals into smaller milestones and you have a firm grasp on what you need to accomplish to meet that goal, then you’ll notice all kinds of opportunities arise. That’s an example of manifesting.

Which opportunity you choose will determine how quickly you’ll reach your goal.

Journaling about your dreams and desires will assist you in recognizing what you’re working toward.

When it comes to manifesting anything in our lives, the more specific we can be, the better. Just as it’s important to be detailed about your ideal client, the same is true about what you want to manifest in your life.

For instance, when you write out the demographics of your ideal attorney client, you’re more likely to take notice of people who fit those demographics when you attend conferences or networking events. All because you took the time to write down those specifics.

Journaling: Self-Love

We often hear about journaling as a part of “self-care” where you write down your feelings.

While it’s certainly helpful in that respect, many entrepreneurs use daily journaling and specific prompts to manifest and improve almost every area of their lives – from lifestyle to money to business as a whole and even to create their next-level selves.

Journaling: Getting Started

If you want to experiment with adding journaling into your life, start off slow and choose just one area of your life that you’d like to improve. Since we’re talking about LNC business today, I encourage you to choose a business goal but just know you can expand journaling into your personal life where you can focus on relationships, spirituality, health and fitness, etc.

Don’t worry! Journaling doesn’t need more than 5-10 minutes a day for it to work and become a habit. Spend those few minutes with your morning coffee or tea and you’ll surprise yourself at how focused you are the rest of the day! Of course, journaling is easy enough to work into any time of day, daydream at lunchtime, or reflect on the good parts of your day in the evening.

Journaling: Go With Flow

Another plus is you don’t have to worry about proper grammar or spelling in your journal. I do recommend that you try to write legibly when you go back to review your notes about your next big program. If you can’t read your writing, chances are nobody else can either, and your million-dollar idea might be lost forever. But everything else is casual.

This journal is for your eyes only and it’s more important to get the words out of your head and onto paper than for it to look grammatically perfect.

Journaling: The Old-Fashioned Way

If you haven’t caught on yet, I am talking about old-school journaling, as in using a paper journal with a pen. I know there are journaling apps and you could probably get your thoughts down pretty quickly on your laptop, but experts agree that handwriting in a journal is a better choice.

With so many people dependent upon their technology, few people actually write anymore, so picking up that pen is different and allows you to focus differently on what you’re writing on the paper. Many experts also believe that handwriting – especially in the morning – serves as a warm-up exercise for your brain. Instead of depending on that coffee to wake you up, couple that with your journaling for extra inspiration and focus.

Experts also agree that a bonus side effect of daily journaling is that you’re strengthening your writing muscles and becoming a better writer without much “effort”. This is terrific news for LNCs! Even those who do not feel like writing is their strong suit notice writing a blog post becomes easier because they become used to writing in their journal.

Conclusion

Also, keep in mind that you don’t need to spend a bunch of money on a fancy journal unless you want to. A simple notebook is a great way to start off. You can even find some journals that have daily space for your work thoughts as well as your health stats and personal items. Journal designs are abundant but find the one that you are most likely to use. No matter how fancy the tool, if you don’t like it or won’t use it consistently, it’s really a waste. So, start small and upgrade later.

My book, Self-Love for Business People: Journaling for Success, will take you deep into the process of journaling.  Grab your copy today and be ready to take notes.

Pat Iyer is president of The Pat Iyer Group, which develops resources to assist LNCs in obtaining more clients, making more money, and achieving their business goals and dreams.

Join our Facebook group, LNC Business Growth Circle, to be part of our LNC community.

Pat’s related websites include the continuing education provided on LNCEU.com, the podcasts broadcast at podcast.legalnursebusiness.com, and writing tips supplied at patiyer.com.

Get all of Pat’s content in one place by downloading the mobile app, Expert Edu at www.legalnursebusiness.com/expertedu. Watch videos, listen to podcasts, read blogs, watch online courses and training, and more.