Keep Yourself Accountable! The Art of Journaling

It’s quickly approaching the second week of 2019 - the time to review new resolutions, write down new goals, change routines, and look at what is no longer helping us in our growth.

Photo: Julia Hilao Photography

Let’s get REAL.

Most people fall off the map in regards to attaining any of their goals or they get lazy, lose motivation, or feel incredibly overwhelmed and exhausted before the end of January. These drastic, mental and physical lifestyle changes can feel like a burden, especially if you are not used to monitoring escalating changes in such a short period of time. What activities can feel empowering for some, may also feel incriminating and defeating for others.

Write it all down.

Writing allows a simple coherency of clarity of the thoughts. Putting pen to paper and utilizing mental and physical effort to express patterns in ideas, poetry, facts or lexical jargon is a skill and talent we are all blessed with, whether we choose to exercise this habit on a regular basis or not.

The simple discipline of writing is taught from a grade-school age and has since become less popular with the rise of mobile devices, recorders, and digital tablets. Most people write down grocery lists, daily to-do lists, or even write down driving directions in a matter-of-fact manner. Allowing the mind to decipher through visual cues, memories, recent events, and lexical meanings, can create confirmation, affirmation, or a physical release from the mental or emotional attachment or a person, place, moment in time.

Writing is like Meditation.

Have you heard of automatic writing? The psychologist Carl Jung coined the term in the ‘60s, this process of writing autonomously with no expectation of reader or sender, no expectation to create, no validation that the mumble of words even creates.

By focusing presently on words that come to paper, rather than analysing and focusing on the reader’s intent, outcome, or shiny, revised revision that sounds poetic, pristine, and refined, come to a place where raw unpacking of the mental mind can fully begin.

Just like meditation, come from a place of non-judgment and patience. (Read: Meditation & Mindfulness: debunking the ancient practice) Wait for any random words to come into mind. If you need to set up a comfortable and quiet place to reflect and journal (as you would meditate), do so. Some moments, many words will flow surreptitiously; other moments, maybe a single sentence will form.

If it helps, set a timer for 5-10 minutes to start. As meditation does not come easy for many, so is the act of getting clear with your thoughts as you write them down. If you are not familiar with describing or coherently addresssing the thoughts or emotions as they come up, simply start with listing the physical surroundings, people and things around you. Using a prompt such as a candle, a piece of poetry, or a still-life object for your writing creates less conscientious focus on trying to get it right and just allows the process to let it all flow.

WRITING PROMPT #1

What is inhibiting you from living your life’s Purpose?

Draw a table of three columns.

In the first column, write down all the current activities that you are actively involved in. Whether this includes recreational sports, professional career, family/social obligations, weekly networking, etc., create lists of all the activities that you include yourself in on a regular daily or weekly basis.

In the second column, state whether each activity is serving you physically, emotionally, socially, psychologically based on the environment, its addition to your growth, its impact, your level of responsibility, etc.

In the third column, state whether you would like to keep or remove each activity from your regular agenda in the short-term or long-term future. Be realistic with this - you don’t want to remove something drastically because its timeslot interferes with another activity that simply enhances your immediate gratification. Consider if you can keep certain activities while simply moving around their timeslots of by changing their frequency per week/month/etc.

Review this table often, call it your list of “Current Aspirations” or whatever you feel guided to name it. You can always make a new table every month, or every season whenever you feel stuck or at a standstill in your search for wanting to create more space and find more fulfillment.

If you feel inclined to start or continue your practice in journaling,

Join me for an afternoon of Meditation & Journaling on January 26, 2019. We will be working on unleashing our Fears, wipe the slate clean from judgment, criticism, and jealousy, and re-enter a cycle in our lives where we can create strong self-affirmations to nourish our growth.

How to Say Yes and Stop the 'Cold-Calling' Process

When you are a novice in the industry that you are becoming acquainted to, there is the general assumption to ask for more tasks, more jobs, more experience, more contacts, more networking, more full exposure to get yourself associated with the right people and right contacts to know your name. How do you stay present within the industry without having to rely on cold-calling and running your energy dry? 

It's been a year since I started teaching yoga professionally, and I still have constant fears that I am not already well established within my direct community and fitness industry. And that's okay...

I was having a conversation with a co-worker whom was interested in becoming a full-time yoga instructor once completing the 200-hour teacher training program. I didn't absolutely agree and support the idea, but I wasn't about to shut the possibility of it happening for this person either. Being given the opportunities to teach does not happen right away, like anything in the fitness and wellness industry, and it may take many trials in different studios, gyms, and systems of management before finding something that works for you financially and for your lifestyle.

“It’s not always about being everywhere and being on the top of every important person’s list that should be of high priority to you. ”

Sometimes saying "Yes!" to an opportunity opens new doors; other times, being able to carefully craft a plan of what to work around and say "No, thank you" is equally as valid and makes room for where you need to direct your energy in a wise and optimized manner. 

Prioritizing work for work's sake is something most of us dread unless we are absolutely stimulated and excited by what it is that we wake up every day for. 

Perhaps we can create that mentality of waking up with a fresh, new opportunity constantly on the horizon. I like writing these things down, first thing when I wake up.

• Find the things that stimulate you:

  • whether this may be cooking and meal prepping, deep conversations with coworkers, group exercise, etc. Carefully carve out what it is that you look forward to in a work day.
  • And if you don't know what stimulates you - make a list of the things that absolutely BORE you and that you would rather avoid doing. Next, use this list to find things you would enjoy instead. 
  • Do the work environments that you seek out promote these activities, values, or principles as well?

• Create opportunities that don't already exist.

  • Look for areas in your life and habits that you usually frequent and take notice of the things most people including yourself complain is missing
  • Are there talents or areas of expertise that you can offer, simply by speaking up and providing feedback for?
  • Sometimes, planting the seed and creating the invitation of a potential event speaks louder than planning and executing an actual event out. 

• Keep some doors open in the meanwhile...

  • Be proactive, but not too proactive while you wait. It's good to have an end-goal to work towards but if that specific hiring manager or company does not contact you, that doesn't mean you should switch professions or call it quits. Sometimes, it's good to keep good relations with management and HR to ask for specific opportunities down the road that may be more specific to what you really want. 
  • It helps to maintain a reputable demeanour across the community - so whether you are volunteering, offering service and your time to a community, or other voluntary act, business professionals will see this as a high-level of commitment and trustworthiness to invest in your time. 

• Build a brand portfolio

  • Create a mission statement. Why is it that you do what you do, for what audience, and towards what benefit.
  • It's common for hiring management to check social media handles, blogs, LinkedIn profiles in addition to checking references and reading mindfully-crafted cover letters. Be authentic in your prose and never copy another user in a similar industry just to gain credibility and professionalism. 
  • Collaborate! What a wonderful avenue to share the artistic merits of other producers, designers, creators and thinkers, while sharing your own vision as well.

Setting up an example of how you wish to be portrayed and treated in the industry, allows others to direct their resources and energy towards you. This may skip the more formal steps of having to provide an elevator pitch, perform an audition, or submit a written request letter. Constantly reflect on your current opportunities and if they are the stepping stones leading up to your favoured end goals.

By narrowing down the opportunities that align with your mission statement and allow you to authentically thrive, you will gain more energy to give back to yourself and the sources that fuel you with more work. At the end of the day, anyone will tell you, networking is all about building relationships. If you spend energy building the wrong types of relationships, your end-products will have the weakest foundation. 

The less energy you spend dwelling on situations that could have happened, or should have happened, start creating and embellishing the situations that you see unfolding. Start having conversations, start having empowering brainstorming sessions, start journalling, get it all done clearly so you don't have to waste time cold-calling and figuring out if you fit into another rigid cookie-cutter mould. 

“Just as grace is the ultimate source of the force that pushes us to ascend the ladder of human evolution, so it is entropy that causes us to resist that force, to stay at the comfortable, easy rung where we now are [...] The issue of power, in spiritual growth as in professional growth. The call to grace is a promotion, a call to a position of a higher responsibility and power.”

— M.D. Scott Peck, The Road Less Travelled