Now before you stop reading, switch off and think, ‘How can something like journaling improve my business?’, let me show you how.
What journaling does is alleviate some of the key roadblocks to success in real estate: stress and anxiety, negative mindsets, lack of discipline and consistency.
Journaling is a powerful tool to clear the mind.
Tim Ferriss says, “I’m just caging my monkey mind on paper so I can get on with my day”.
Journaling doesn’t need to solve your problems. It simply needs to get them out of your head, where they’ll otherwise bounce around all day like a bullet ricocheting inside your skull.
Journaling provides an outlet for your thoughts, worries, concerns, problems, stresses and anxieties. It gives you the chance to declutter the mind and start from a fresh perspective each day. It is a routine that creates focus and clarity, making you much more productive, efficient and effective.
Journaling gives you the chance to declutter the mind and start from a fresh perspective each day.
Julia Cameron is the creator of Morning Pages, one of the most popular journaling books, involving three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing first thing in the morning. She says journaling is like having “spiritual windshield wipers; once we get those muddy, maddening, confusing thoughts, nebulous worries, jitters and preoccupations on the page, we face our day with clearer eyes”.
It also helps your creative thinking. As Richard Branson says, “Some of Virgin’s most successful companies have been born from random moments – if we hadn’t opened our notebooks, they would never have happened.”
“Keeping a personal journal, a daily in-depth analysis and evaluation of your experiences, is a high-leverage activity that increases self-awareness and enhances all the endowments and the synergy among them.” — Stephen R. Covey
Journaling also helps develop one of the 21st century’s most important performance tools: gratitude. For ten years Oprah wrote down things that she was grateful for. Things that made her heart sing, things that made her laugh, things that tasted wonderful, things that were beautiful, things she loved. And, well, the rest is history.
Gratitude journaling makes you happier, healthier, boosts your career, strengthens your emotions, improves sleep, increases self-esteem, raises energy levels, helps you relax, boosts productivity, makes you more optimistic and improves your decision-making.
Also, when you write down positive experiences, it boosts endorphins; Dr James Pennebaker, author of Writing to Heal, has even seen journaling improve immune function.
Values-based journaling is very effective as well. A study at Stanford got two groups of students to journal during their holidays and report back at the new school semester. Those who had journalled about their values and how they connected back to their day reported being healthier, with higher energy and more positive attitudes than the group who just wrote down positive things that happened during the day.
Journaling is also great for the brain, as neurologist and teacher Judy Willis explains: “The practice of writing can enhance the brain’s intake, processing, retaining, and retrieving of information… it promotes the brain’s attentive focus … boosts long-term memory, illuminates patterns, gives the brain time for reflection and, when well-guided, is a source of conceptual development and stimulus of the brain’s highest cognition.”
So journaling is a powerful tool for change. As you connect with a deeper part of who you are on a regular basis, it enables you to grow and focus on what’s important, allows you to be creative and helps you deal with stress and problems.
“Keeping a journal of what’s going on in your life is a good way to help you distill what’s important and what’s not.” — Martina Navratilova.
