Self Care Starts With Self Awareness - 4 Ways To Improve Your Mindset And Happiness By Journaling
Did you ever wonder where to start to bring more happiness and sense of autonomy into your life? Journaling is a great practice to create self-awareness and mindfulness, which are the foundation layers to creating a happy and intentional life.
There is no doubt about mindfulness and journaling to be effective tools for reduction of burnout, increase of joy and gratitude, as well as a boost of efficiency and effectiveness. Most successful CEOs have journaling practices to reflect on their days, their actions, their experiences – and to learn from them. Daily.
- Your daily routine will become action-based, so you have intention that leads to success.
- You’ll maximise your creativity and will be crushing your goals.
- You’ll have more focus and harmony, so the people you care about can benefit from your improved lifestyle.
- You’re now on a path toward your next level of life, and once you reach it you’ll only keep going up!
Personally, I wasn’t very convinced about journaling. I associated it with the teenage years diary with a little lock on it and writing about boys I had a crush on and worrying that my brother and his friends would find my diary and make fun of me… Well this is different.
Let me tell you how I found my way back to journaling – as an adult, in my mid-30s.
After some pretty big life changes a couple years ago – Covid hitting, moving countries, etc. – I felt mentally exhausted and vision-less. It’s never been this way for me, I always had something I was working towards. I found myself at loss of control due to external circumstances (Covid, lockdowns etc.) and I was just trying to survive from one day to the next.
Life was seemingly happening to me, not for me. I lost touch with myself, my needs, my dreams and I felt empty inside.
I felt like my life didn’t belong to me. That the things I worked for so hard – my marriage and my beautiful new home – were slipping away from me. And I didn’t know whether I should fight harder to keep them – at the expense of losing myself even more in the process. Or whether I should be brave enough to let go and rebuild my life. But what was it I even wanted?
If you’re going through hell, keep going. Don’t stop there, don’t stay there. Persist till you succeed.
I really needed help, so I looked for a life coach. Someone who can help me make a plan.
It was serendipity – I found a great coach right around the corner who ended up not just helping me create a plan, but learning to listen to myself again. Guess how? Through journaling.
At first I was sceptical. Why am I paying someone to help me when I have to do all the work? That was literally my first thought. Little did I know how badly out of touch I was with myself. How much I had tuned down my inner voice. How low I set my boundaries. How much I gave away from myself and never really recharged my batteries.
The first few prompts she gave me were around self-recognition and what it feels like to really listen to myself. To hear my inner voice, to tap into my authenticity. And it was hard to write anything at first but she pushed me to go a little deeper, listen a little closer, step by step. Since then I have been trying out a lot of new journaling prompts, around visualising my dream life, dream partner, setting boundaries, understanding what I like and dislike, what energises me and what doesn’t, and so on. And I’ve kept going to this day and will keep going for a lot longer, because self reflection is such a pure way of self-care and self-love.
Boosting your self-awareness, a little bit every day.
The best part is that it costs you nothing but a few minutes and a little bit of courage to start this journey back to yourself. The pay-off is huge, not least because you truly take action towards a happier life rather than waiting for someone to come and save you.
If you are intrigued, why not start with my starter’s guide to journaling? It’s an easy kick off guide to start your daily journaling practice with 3 simple prompts that help you tune up the volume of your inner voice again.
I can’t wait to hear back from you about your experience! DM me or leave a comment below.
