A couple of months ago I was feeling down.
My Youtube channel was flopping in a terrible way, my job search was going awfully wrong
and basically it seemed like all of my professional plans were going down the drain.
Since I'm not a person who likes to externalise her feelings, I was in dire need of something
that allowed me to take all of that stuff out of my chest; so, for the first time in
like - ten years -, I decided to restart journaling.
I always thought that daily journaling was an incredibly overwhelming project so I have
been running away from it for as long as I can remember... but I actually had a journal
with prompts at home called the 6 Minute Journal that I received in a PR package last year.
It seemed pretty simple: it basically promised that journaling for 6 minutes every day (with
two sessions of three minutes, one in the morning and one in the evening) would change
your mindset; so I gave it a try.
My only rule for this journaling thing was not feeling forced to do it.
I skipped tons of pages at first because I couldn't form the habit, but during this time,
when I had a bad day, i always remembered that I could now journal what was happening
and what I was feeling.
On uneventful days, I would forget all about it because writing down the trivial things
of my day-to-day seemed like it didn't make any sense.
The problem was that journaling started as way to externalise my negative feelings and
that wasn't making me feel better, and, most of all, wasn't a healthy approach.
Only after a couple of weeks would I be able to start looking at the more positive prompts
and start answering those.
In due time I started reaching some interesting conclusions . The fact that I had direct writing
prompts forced me to reflect on what I was was doing wrong in my life.
Reading past entries also allowed me to get a certain degree of progress, even it that
progress was simply understanding how my ideas evolved.
Eventually, I found out that through journaling, I was able to work through my problems with
no external help; it was like I had all the tools to solve my issues but the lack of reflection
and the lack of stopping to think and process events were things that were blocking me from
achieving those solutions.
Eventually, the importance of pouring my heart out was replaced by something even bigger,
and that was gratitude journaling.
I was felt that gratitude journals wouldn't work for me; I've always considered myself
a pretty grounded, grateful person in general so I thought that translating that into paper
was simply a waste of time.
However, I had a completely different result; I noticed that in the section called "things
I am grateful for" I was repeating most of the items every single day.
That repetition was basically creating a steady stream of priorities that even in the darkest
days I was thankful for: I was thankful for being able to learn every single day, I was
thankful for my family and friends; and I was thankful that I had a work that was creative
and allowed me to teach, even if it's through an entertainment format and allowed me to
live a comfortable life.
Those three items stood out in such a regular way that they started "speaking" to me.
It was just like my main priorities were written down in stone in that journal and that it
was meaningless to chase after other menial, secondary goals that wouldn't make me feel
as happy.
In a sense, journaling allowed me to ground myself, to re-establish priorities and understand
why the heck I'm doing what I'm doing.
The fact that I was using a journal with short prompts was the best possible way to fall
in love with the habit without causing a huge strain on my schedule.
I was journaling whenever I wanted, without tracking how many times I did it, and it was
that organic way of doing it that helped me out the most.
Eventually, I switched from writing down everything bad that happened and started focusing mostly
on gratitude journaling and, in a certain way, refocusing my actions and my work towards
those three priorities that I mentioned.
Right now, I'm a huge believer in journaling as a way to overcome a bad period in your
life or simply realigning your priorities and purpose.
My advice is to start as simple as you can get with a journal that already has prompts
(since following directions is much easier than starting writing just for the sake of
writing) and build up from there.
If you want to know more about journaling, some tips and tricks and walkthroughs, you
can find a bunch of lessons in Skillshare, who's sponsoring today's video.
Skillshare is an online learning community with more than 25 thousand classes in dozens
of different categories and they can help you build new skills, develop new strategies
and learn more about anything you feel curious about.
Skillshare portfolio includes productivity and business masterclasses, tutorials on how
to work with different types of software, language classes, art and design courses and
so on.
But if you're watching this video because you want to start journaling too, you can
start by watching The Ultimate Guide to Creative Planning & Journaling and then complement
that class with How to Create your Own Journal or the 10 Day Journaling Challenge class.
Premium membership gives you unlimited access to all these incredible classes so no individual
payments required and since skillshare costs less than 10 dollars a month for the yearly
subscription, it’s the perfect platform to conitnuously develop your study skills.Also,
if you one of the first 500 people to click the link in description box to get your first
two months of unlimited classes for free.