When The Going Gets Tough Use Your Daily Journal

I am a great fan and advocate for the daily journal as a part of the personal development and self awareness journey. I have cultivated journaling each day as a habit and over time have developed an array of very useful tips for assisting to keep the daily journal interesting and stimulating.  There could be nothing worse for me than to have a habit which is mundane and boring.  And I coach people using the daily journal as a key element to attract and maintain life success.  I am even in development phase for a commercial product around a daily journal.

So it came as a great surprise to me this week to discover that 6 days had passed since I had made an entry in my daily journal and 10 days had passed since I had written about my thankfulness, gratitude and appreciation for life. It happens that I had been feeling a bit low in mood and unmotivated over the last three days and yesterday I decided to explore that in my journal.  I opened up and noticed how many days since I had made an entry.  Well, I thought to myself, be your own coach!!

So I went through my daily habit, entering in my journal what was happening and working through how to move forward, going over my years goals and writing about how I was working towards them, listing my gratitude for what I have right now and what is coming to me in the future. Lo and behold, it worked, got me back on track and I decided on a couple of processes to help me through this low motivation phase.  My mood lifted almost immediately.

For the moment, my daily journal will consist of decisions on the actions that I am taking towards my life goals and I will check back over that each day to see my progress. With that inspiration, I completed 2 of my 3 tasks yesterday and one that was not on the list but the time was right.  Today I am well on the way with the 4 that I committed to for this day.

Learning? Sometimes it helps to just go back to the basics and I know that the daily journal is one of those basic but essential habits.  Oh and just for a bit of fun I had a look back to where I was this time last year.  Happily, much progress has been made and some of my big life decisions are coming to fruition right now.  Attract success – you betcha!!

10 Reasons Why I Love Blogging

I saw another blog that featured 10 reasons why I hate ….. and so I decided that I would rather write 10 reason why I love something and the something is my blog. I have been seriously blogging for nearly a year now and at times I have managed to write every day.  At other times, like lately, I manage only once a week and occasionally less.  But no matter how often I write my blog, I just love to do it and especially love the challenge of picking a topic that will appeal.

So here are my ten reasons why I love blogging:-

1. It keeps me on my toes with what is currently of interest.
2. It is an opportunity for me to explore my own issues around the subject matter that I choose.
3. Researching the articles is great – I learn something every time.  How does it get any better than that?
4. My blog creates a link to others who offer comments and I find that very interesting.
5. Having a blog has caused me to be a blog surfer and I have all but given up TV watching in favour of all of the amazing things that I find on blogs.
6. I continue to have to learn about SEO and other interesting marketing strategies and that has only occurred because of my blog.
7. It is really nice to be part of a worldwide community of bloggers.
8. Old friends have found me and contacted me via my blog.
9. Blogs are more fun than facebook.
10. I get to keep polishing my writing skills in preparation for the book that I have in me.

So there you have it, ten reasons why I love blogging. What do you love so much that you can write ten reasons really easily?  Go on, have a go, have some fun and a positive experience.

More Ideas To Make Your Daily Journal Easy

I am, as you know, a devotee of the daily journal habit. Apart from the fact that the development of daily habits is a contributor to happiness (and who does not want happiness?), it is also pretty amazing to read back over your journal at the same time of the year, from time to time, and see the changes that you have made in your life, for yourself and/or they way that you are feeling.  Writing down some of your daily thoughts and ideas can be fulfilling in many other ways as hand writing, which some say it is becoming a lost art, can help you to make sense of what is happening, how you are reacting and why and actions that you can take to make changes where you want them.  And it will definitely help you on your journey to success.

Sure, it can be a confronting process at times as you may start to explore some parts of yourself that you prefer not to face but that is where the real value if this lovely process comes in. You are exploring these things just with yourself!!  No-one else unless you chose to.  And then you can look at them in wonder, at a later date, and laugh about your fears.  Some of the things that I have been afraid of in the past have proven to be just nothing later, because I took charge of them.

How does it get any better than that?

So recently, in my quest for more content to help people to work with their daily journal, I was delighted to read “Your Pocket Life Coach” – seriously recommend that you get this one. Carole Gaskell, Author, outlines some of her ideas for the daily “inspirational” journal.  So test these out and see a previous blog of mine, 10 Ideas To Get You Started With A Daily Journal,  for even more ideas.

From Carole Gaskell:-

• Use your daily inspirational journal to record your thoughts, insights, intuitive ideas and actions
• Write about things that make you happy, confident, excited
• Record your achievements and what you are committed to doing next
• Note the people you love and why
• Outline your plans for the next day, week, month etc
• Put down what you have learned that day or things that have helped you in your development.

Oh, and have fun!!  And my congratulations to Carole for such a smashing little book.

Be Inspired, Get Excited and Save Planet Earth

In recent months I have had the opportunity to be inspired by the actions of other’s in Australia or elsewhere in the world. I have found most of what I have been hearing not only inspirational but very exciting.  For example I had the privilege recently to hear Scott Borrows talk and to see him walk!!!  Now most of you are probably thinking “so what”.  Well here is the “so what” – Scott is a quadriplegic who made a decision to do anything he wanted in spite of that.  Scott walks, plays gold, scuba dives, skis and so on.  Inspirational? – absolutely.  But more than that was the excitement that I felt when I saw what is possible if you put your mind to it.

Late last year I heard about a plan by Gary Douglas and Dain Heer, the founders of Access Consciousness, who intend to take 300 people out into the Ocean off California and use their collective mind power to solve the problem of the floating garbage dump. If you have not heard about this problem, let me tell you about it.  We have created what is thought to be the world’s largest garbage dump out in the middle of the ocean, stretching from California to Japan and in some places it is nine metres deep.  Some refer to it as the plastic continent since it is largely made of PLASTIC!!  Washed out into the ocean from where it has been dropped on land.  Plastic bottles, bags, lids, chairs – anything at all.

Everyone of us needs to know more about this alarming problem and I invite you to go take a look on You Tube and further your education on this huge plastic garbage dump in the Pacific Ocean.

I then invite you to get excited, just as I have done, by the project that Gary and Dain have got up called Ocean 300. Anyone can be involved in a variety of ways so I encourage you to take personal action on this and exercise your personal development muscle by working on behalf of our wonderful planet.  Support Gary and Dain and give this project every chance of success.

If a person who is a quadriplegic can do what Scott Burrows is doing by using his mind power, then surely our collective mind power from across the whole planet can solve this problem that scientists say is unsolvable. Give up?  I say never.

Oh, and by the way, my sincere thanks to Scott for his vision and grit and for the inspiration that he is.

10 Ideas To Get You Started With A Daily Journal

There are a number of factors that contribute to overall happiness and one is the development of habits. The very best and most useful habit is that of  daily journaling.  Back in the day, it used to be called a diary and started with the words “Dear Diary”.  Today, it is used to record one’s self improvement and journey towards enlightenment or that place where one is at their very best.  A daily journal can be a great tool to use on the path to achieve success.

A daily entry to your journal can be a simple account of the events that have had an impact or it can be a complex entry of self-discovery. To help you get started, if you have not already done so, try the following tips:-

1. Record 6 things for which you are grateful, appreciative or thankful that are occurring right now.
2. Record another 6 that are coming to you in the future.
3. Keep a daily list of the prosperity or abundance in your life.  This might be a simple as having a friend shout you a coffee or another driver graciously letting you change lanes.  Keep tabs on them all and let your abundance grow before your eyes.
4. Write about what you have done over the day, action that you have taken towards your life goal.
5. List what you intend to do the next day, week or month and check back later to see how you went.
6. Spend some time writing what you believe are your strengths and weaknesses and then write about how you intend to grow your strengths to outweigh your weaknesses.
7. Record the occasions during the day when you have successfully shifted your feelings from not so good to better by recognising your not so good feelings and changing your thoughts at that time.
8. Work out a set of questions that will help you to challenge yourself around your limiting beliefs.  For example – “What am I doing when I find myself having an argument with my partner?”  “How do I get into the argument in the first place?”  “How can I avoid it?”  This is just an example; you can use anything that you like.  Just make sure that you do not let yourself off the hook.
9. Use your journal to help you to visualise where you intend to be in life, in the next year, next five years, next ten years.  Write in detail about how your life will be, how that will benefit you and the community and why you need to have this life.  Regularly check back to see how you are going on your journey.
10. List the random acts of kindness that you intend to perform in the next 24 hours and then check back each day to see if you did them.

Above all, have fun with this wonderful daily habit.

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