THE 14 DAY EXPERIMENT.COM

THE BENEFITS OF JOURNALING

There have been many studies on the benefits of Journaling which has been proven to improve health and well-being, counteract many of the negative effects of stress and improve cognitive functioning. People who journal have also been found to become re-employed sooner after loosing their jobs, miss fewer days of work and have higher grade point averages.  Here are a few types of journaling that will get you started:

Free Style:

Sometimes people don’t now how to get started or what to write.  Simply put your thoughts and feelings on paper and just let it flow.  If you are journaling free style – it’s really about making a commitment to the journaling process and sticking with it.  You can journal when you wake up in morning or before you go to bed or even on your lunch hour, when ever you have some privacy and time for yourself. Commit to filling up a page.  If you don’t know what to write…then say that, “I woke up and I don’t know what to write”, and let your thoughts flow from there. Write about the meeting you have today and what you need to do to get prepared.  Just start writing and your thoughts will begin to fill up the page.

Gratitude Journaling:

When you write about what you are grateful for, you keep your mind focused on what you have rather than what you don’t or what someone else has.  This type of journaling helps you stay in touch with what you have in the present, while you are working on improving your future.  The standard recommendation is to record five blessings a day, I like setting a goal like that because it trains your mind to be on the look out for the good.

Weekly or Monthly Accomplishments Journal:

Keep a running list your achievements.  It doesn’t matter if someone else pats you on the back, when you keep an accomplishments journal you get a chance to pat yourself on the back.  This type of journal is great for work because it helps you get prepared for your performance reviews and can give you ideas to boost your resume. At the end of every month, list your accomplishments at home, work, and in your community.  

"STOP B.S.ing"

For the last six months, I have been teaching a class at a career school in Detroit.   I must say it has been one of the most rewarding and inspiring experiences I’ve ever had.  It has been rewarding because it takes me back to where I came from.  I grew up in Detroit near 7 mile and Wyoming.  I am one of the few kids who made it off the block.  Most of the people I grew up with ended up going to jail, selling drugs, dead, in prostitution or stuck in the cycle of poverty.  Yes, it feels good to have made it out of a situation with the odds stacked against me.  But, the memory of my friends who were left behind never leaves. 

I knew this experience would fulfill my need to give back, but what I didn’t expect was to be so inspired.  Many of my students have no job experience, no high school diploma, lots of baby mama/daddy drama, a criminal record, poor living conditions, no transportation and no money. Yet, they have tucked their tails between their legs and are asking for help to get their GED, a trade and a new resume.

My job is to help them develop soft skills and the fortitude to push through their circumstances and succeed.  This past Thursday, I was conducting a workshop and spent about sixty minutes really digging deep to find the right words to motivate them to acknowledge their biggest roadblocks and leverage their strengths to overcome.

After the class, one man who is in his thirties stood up and said, “Ms. Bettie I get it. I have 30 days left of this year. I need to stop B.S.ing.”  After all that, he summed it up and said it better than me.

YES, STOP B.S.ing.  That is exactly what most of us need to do.

If we are honest with ourselves, we can see that we could be so much farther along if we would commit to walking out the “good ideas” and opportunities that we get.  And, we know the key to our future success is to fully embrace who we are and take our performance to the next level.  Here are some of the goals my students are committed to walking out:

• One hates authority, but has decided if someone knows more than she does and says jump, she will say “how high”
• One is very introverted and not comfortable speaking in public, she is pushing to speak up in class (and she did three times that day)
• One says he can’t seem to be conversational during interviews, he prepared and rehearsed and secured a job in four days
• One just found out her man has cheated on her AGAIN and fathered a child, she found a Bible verse to say to herself before she confronts him
• One is having trouble on the math section of the GED, she says math is her new lover – she will go to bed and wake up with him everyday

 I don’t know about you, but I am going to take my student’s advice and stop B.S.ing. I wrote a book, The 14 Day Experiment, that I need to FINALLY self publish and that is exactly what I am going to do! We have one month left of 2011, what are you going to do?