Self-Reflection and Journaling often lead to new insights. Never undermine the power of this extremely powerful exercise.
Here is why..
I have been working very hard on an important delivery, actually the online leadership summit to meet the deadlines. Journaling is part of my evening routine.
As I was reflecting on my day during journaling, I realized I was irritable most of the time, angry with the team members and frustrated when things were not moving. Is this my default? NO. I generally maintain my composure. Meditation and mindfulness practices help me with that. But this time I was NOT at my best. I could feel the dissatisfaction, frustration even when journaling. So what was going wrong? I had some surprising findings!
In my journal, I track the fundamentals which include sleep, movement, food and renewal breaks. Past few days, I had not been paying attention to these basics. I had been sleeping very late working on the project. In fact sleep for only for 5 hours. I had the same project delivery excuse for the gym and zero renewal time.
Though I knew deep down this was important, I had neglected it for something that I felt was more urgent. Obviously it was counterproductive.
Self Reflection during journaling helped me figure out the issue and take the corrective action. I have now made sleep hours as a non-negotiable. Also grateful to Marilyn Paul, who reminded me during the summit interview that we need to slow down to speed up.
You would be astonished with your own discoveries during this Self-reflection exercise. So, never trade the journaling time for anything else.
What can you do to make journaling part of your daily routine?
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