Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Journal Writing Round-up: Three Articles


I am always searching for articles that outline the benefits of journal writing or ways to use journaling to improve one's life, career, or relationships. Recently, I came upon these three and provide a brief excerpt below the title. Click on the title to read the entire article. Enjoy.












Ditch perfection: "Your notebook is not meant to be a manuscript or memoir, but rather a place where you can "brain dump" ideas, organize your day and spark your creativity. It is not going to be a work of art archived in the Smithsonian, so don’t treat it as such."


Write in your journal. "No, not the “dear diary” kind of entries. Keeping a journal is a practice that can help you process the day and make sense of your thoughts. Keep your journal in the nightstand and every night take a few minutes to review the day’s triumphs and write down what you’re grateful for that day.

Don’t make this a boring, unthoughtful experience. Think of it as a nightly meditation -- just two minutes of reflection thinking about the day’s highlights and writing them down will transform your waking and sleeping thought. It’s part of a wealthy lifestyle to appreciate all the great things of the day: doors held open, great conversations had." 



""The act of writing is more powerful than people think," Peterson says.

Most people grapple at some time or another with free-floating anxiety that saps energy and increases stress. Through written reflection, you may realize that a certain unpleasant feeling ties back to, say, a difficult interaction with your mother. That type of insight, research has shown, can help locate, ground and ultimately resolve the emotion and the associated stress.

At the same time, "goal-setting theory" holds that writing down concrete, specific goals and strategies can help people overcome obstacles and achieve."

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