9 Ways Journaling Can Make You a Better Leader
Is your head full of ideas? Do you find it hard to go to sleep because the cogs are still turning? Do you sometimes feel like your brain could explode because there’s so much going on up there and you're trying to hold it all in?
I know that I absolutely can feel this way. In the last few years I’ve taken to journaling to help get everything that's up in my head, out!
The writer, Julia Cameron said this
"Journaling is like spiritual windscreen wipers."
I often suggest journaling as a simple effective tool that leaders can use when they’re feeling a little overwhelmed or unclear.
Journaling can help you to:
Gain clarity around an issue that’s troubling you
Increase your self-awareness
Focus on what matters most
Reduce the busyness in your head and clear your thoughts
Be more creative
Simplify the complex
Find solutions to a problem
Be fully present during the day with the person in front of you
Allow you to rest and improve your sleep
How and when you journal is very personal and unique. Pick a time, place and method that works best for you.
Sometimes I’ll write a few pages, other times just two or three words.
The scientific research to support journaling is extensive and compelling:
According to a study conducted by Harvard Business School, participants who journaled at the end of the day had a 25% increase in performance when compared with a those who did not journal. As the researchers concluded, "Our results reveal reflection to be a powerful mechanism behind learning, confirming the words of American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer John Dewey: ‘We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience."
If you haven’t tried journaling before or if it’s been awhile since you picked up the pen, I encourage you to give it a go. It just might help you to become a better leader….
Champagne and Sunshine,
Midja x
PS:
I want to share with you a little extract from my latest journal from 'Writing as Therapy" :
"Our lives are filled with journeys of both the outer and inner kinds. These two sorts need a journal to capture them.
A journal is a small, elegant tool the makes up for our endemic forgetfulness. It sums up mental and physical travel; it gives longer life to fleeting inspirations and sensations; it decodes experiences. It will stand as a record of who are are.
What we need, above all, are records of sensations and ideas. We need to be able to read, many years from now, about what we felt and how it marked us. This is a place to jot down where we have been, in our minds and on the earth - and why it mattered"