How to Journal for Success in Your LNC Business
Journaling helps many people, personally and for their businesses to take a deep dive using journal prompts.
If you are an LNC business owner, you know that talk of journaling comes up in business conversations quite frequently. Not only is it a great way to organize your thoughts and work out difficult problems, but it’s also a way to focus on exactly what you want out of life.
You only get one life and YOU are in charge of making it the best. If YOU are unhappy with the path you’re on, journaling can help you discover what you truly want and how to achieve those desires.
To get the most out of your journaling experience, we’re going to answer some questions first, so you can clarify for yourself WHY you want to journal and what you hope to gain from this routine.
Get ready because you’ll be asking yourself WHY a lot! The deeper you dig for answers, the more meaningful your journaling becomes.
It’s time to get planning!
Journal for Success: The Benefits
Create A Journal That Sparks Amazement and Deepens Your Soul
Journaling has many benefits but the only way it will be beneficial to YOU is if you have a strong desire to start and maintain the practice. Rather than thinking of journaling as a chore, or something that you ‘have’ to do, think of it as an exciting journey to discover your innermost desires.
Everyone’s journaling experience is vastly different, which is why the deeper you dive into your psyche and identify what you want in life, the more exciting the act of journaling becomes.
Some people journal simply to keep track of their workday and the tasks at hand while others have separate journals for their gratitude, finances, or health. While some people much prefer the simplicity of bullet journaling, others prefer the freestyle journaling of writing what’s on their mind that day, using long-hand and full sentences.
The only ‘wrong’ way to journal is to start and stop repeatedly, or to think of it as a chore.
Gain clarity on why you’re doing what you’re doing. That is, being deeply aware of what your intention with starting a journal is. You could use it to declutter your mind, plan and organize your day, get your creative juices flowing, record your life experiences, or anything else that has meaning to you.
“WHY”
One word I want you to get used to saying – even if it means saying it out loud – is WHY. Don’t settle for that first answer to any of the exercise questions. Dig deeper by asking WHY.
For example, let’s say you want to start a personal or an LNC business journal because you want to reclaim your LIFE by reviewing how many hours are spent working. By itself, ‘reviewing how many hours are spent working’ is a bold reason. But WHY? What’s at that deeper level? Why do you want to reclaim your time? Is it to be able to play with your young children? Take vacations as a family without using your laptop or smartphone. YES!
Keep asking yourself WHY to those second-level questions. Why is it important to you to work less? Further, why is it important to make memories? Why do you want to play with your children while they are still young, and make their wishes come true? Keep digging deep! The more important your reasoning, the more likely you’ll be to stick with journaling and make it work for you. Instead of thinking you can skip a day of writing down your work stats, you’ll fall into a quick habit of tracking your progress because you’ve identified WHY it’s important to you.
Journal for Success: 21 Days
You’ve heard the saying that it takes 21 days to create a new habit?
Challenge yourself to keep journaling for a straight 21 days. Adding anything new to your daily routine can be difficult, especially if you’re hesitant about whether you’ll gain any benefit from it, but what harm can it do to journal for 21 days? You’re not talking an hour each day. Allow yourself 10-15 minutes to start and see how it develops from there.
Feel free to daydream about how journaling will benefit your daily life and pay attention to how you feel before and after journaling. What do you think it would feel like if you skipped journaling on Day 22? Embrace journaling as a daily habit and soon you won’t want to skip any days.
If 21 days of straight writing sounds too difficult or boring, add some embellishments to your journal and treat it as an artistic canvas. Any supplies that you’d find in a scrapbooking section of the craft store would work well in a journal, so let your imagination get wild!
Conclusion
When you approach journaling in this deep, intentional way the process no longer becomes a chore that you procrastinate about completing. Instead, journaling becomes an art where for a few moments you can explore the inner workings of your mind and soul. This type of thinking elevates your journals to masterpieces worth revisiting in the future instead of ‘just some notebooks’ that are taking up space in your home.
My book, ‘Self-Love for Business People: Journal for Success’, walks you through the process of journaling. Once you begin journaling, you will feel inspired to keep writing.
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.
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