How to Use a Journal to Change Your Life

Описание: Today I want to talk about how to change your life by keeping a diary. I talk a lot about making and keeping a visual diary but this is something different – changing your life and getting closer to your goals and dreams by actually writing about them on a piece of paper.

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PROMPTS FOR CHANGING YOUR LIFE WITH YOUR JOURNAL

If I could do anything and knew that I wouldn't fail, what would it be?

If I knew that nothing could possibly stop me, what would I do?

What do I want to do more than anything else?

What do I want to try more than anything else?

If I could design my life, what would it look like?

What do I need to do to die with the right regrets?

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Naming your deepest, wildest dreams, even in a private diary can feel scary. The problem is – one of the problems is – that many of us don't feel that we have the right. We deeply feel - "Who am I to allow myself to imagine a life that is big and gorgeous and creative?"

And what if I write it in my diary and someone sees it? What if I see it? I write it, I see it, and I fail and there, I've blown it so I better not write it down.

Well, you only have one, precious life and instead of giving up before you start and thereby comfortably avoiding fear and possibly guilt and maybe even shame (I've been there) – instead of that, what if you could see this differently? What would you write down if someone told you that you couldn't fail?

If you can just open the door in your mind and spirit, wide enough to ask that question - then you can put it on a piece of paper and you can bring it to the light. That's how you can begin.

You can start by making a map of your life – your goals and desires are the roads and streets and paths. While you may wander and meandering off the beaten track as you go, you are probably better off starting with a roadmap, all the same. This helps turn your life into a meaningful journey rather than aimless marching in place.

Of course, the trick is how to outwit your internal editor, the one telling you that you don't deserve to begin, haven't earned it yet. Don't kill her. Don't beat him up. Just go around the sucker. And here is a supereasy, non-fattening, extremely cheap tool for doing that. Write it down in a burner diary, the cheapest notebook you can find.

A school notebook from the grocery store is perfect, the one that costs $1.50. Dollar Tree, PoundLand. For this excercise, skip the fancy blank book, the one with the empty pages that won't let you write in it. If your notebook is cheap, you can afford to be extravagant with your thoughts. No one, not even your internal editor can say your thoughts and dreams aren't worth $1.50.

THIS cheap, run of the mill book is just the thing for writing your most outrageous dreams, the bigger and the madder the better. It's a burner diary - no one has to read this. Not even you. You can tell it anything you want! It's the very thing that lets you give yourself permission to write, and think, and scheme. Roll those imagination dice and make it big.

Okay, you have the cheapest notebook you can find. You need a pen or pencil. Cheap ones. The one in the bottom of the kitchen drawer will do.

Now find a place and a way to be alone. If it is nice out, sit under a tree. Sit in the back seat of your car in the driveway. Go to the library. I LOVE to write in the library. All that quiet and nice tables and nobody wants to know why you are going there. It's obvious you are going to look for a book – not part of your misplaced soul – so there is no need to overexplain, even to yourself. You can figure this out.

You have your cheap notebook. You have your cheap pen. You are alone for 15 minutes. Now WRITE.