Have you ever wondered how successful people seem to be so busy yet are able to do some incredible things? I thought that way too for the longest time! When I was younger I had dreams of making a big world impact but would get pretty overwhelmed at the possibility of having too many things going on and not being able to do them all with the standards of excellence I hold myself to.
When I began to withdraw and not be able to get anything done, I started to lose my short term memory. It was suggested to me from a few mentors I looked up to, that I am a processor. I am deeply emotional and hugely compassionate and empathic. I also want things to be perfect (though I know now that perfection does not exist). Nonetheless, I began this journey of writing to explore myself, organize my thoughts and my days, review the high-lights of my day and the lessons, and plan and dream of incredible futures I believed were possible for me and the life I wanted to create.
(Rebecca was one of my mom’s best friends. She was one of the only women aside from my mom that I could tell anything to. She got me into writing and helped me get into personal development books with my first book “7 Steps of Highly Effective Teens” when I was 14. She had a lot of health complications the year prior to my dad passing away and a few short months after helping mom plan the funeral arrangements we were planning hers. I miss her dearly).
Strategy 1: Set A Regular Place and Time To Journal
Journaling can be extremely cathartic and help you reduce your stress, which can increase your happiness levels. ⠀
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I love to ✍️ at the end of the day to wrap up my day in higher transition times (like starting my new job Houzz a couple weeks ago). I also write in the am if my anxiety levels are really high. I’ll write affirmations reframing the feelings and thoughts into what I believe is possible for my current situation. Setting a regularly scheduled time to write can provide consistency when the rest of your life may feel a bit out of control.
For example, my mind was going to some really negative places on Tuesday morning right before I headed to my second day on the phones at Houzz. My first day I had a lot of technical issues with the headset, first time using SalesForce for tracking calls and notes, it was really loud and distracting in the room of about 100 of us on the phone at the same time. The team was super supportive and very kind answering questions but it was very very new and frankly stressful. I’m an achiever-goal driven personality and felt a little out of my element to achieve much that day.
So Tuesday I was expecting it to be better by going in with a game plan and trying to get a little more organized in how I structured my day. I was also running a little bit late because my social media scheduled post (new trial) was popping up as a notification for me to post to Instagram. The internet was super slow, I knew I needed to head out the door before the traffic got too heavy in Nashville. Needless to say, it was a little hectic morning. My normal routine in the morning is to set my morning as calm as possible when I’m tackling new territories because my anxiety will give me enough excitement as it is 😂. However, what actually happened was lots of technical chaos and stress.
I believe had I chosen to journal Tuesday morning and not worry about the scheduled post, I would have gone into work with a calm mindset and had more free space in my brain to be creative. Lesson learned! Schedule journaling as a regular part of your daily routine either in the am or night time or maybe both during those higher stress times. There are no hard rules about it, try different methods out and find what works best for you.
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Strategy 2: Journaling Mindfully Can Transform Your Neuronal Pathways
Did you know journaling can transform your brain? Neurons send and receive info in your brain telling your body what to do. When you write about yourself, your beliefs, doubts, fears, confidences, victories, you are creating or rewiring your neuronal pathways. Most of our thoughts (some experts say we have about 40-70k thoughts a day), are the same thoughts we had yesterday and the day before and the day before. When we write, we have the power to write new ideas, new beliefs, and create new thoughts about ourselves instead of the repeated ones from the past.
I’ll give you an example of some old thoughts that I was able to transform through my writing…
When I was a child and teen I had some strong fears of men going to hurt me. There were some actual experiences that probably programmed my brain to feel that way. For the longest time, even into my professional career when I taught in the K-12 schools, I was terrified to talk to adult men. I was even a little scared talking to my high school male students if they were taller than me (most were since I’m only 5’5.5″ 😂).
For the longest time I would NOT talk to them. I would avoid conversations at all cost because my brain associated danger with all men. Looking back its sad actually because many of those men I’m sure were not dangerous but for some reason my brain wanted to protect me from it.
I discovered this reality when I was journaling daily in 2015. I started practicing the Miracle Morning method and noticed when I was networking for my online wellness/skincare business I had tons of pictures of women but none of men and wanted to expand my portfolio. Even though my brain was telling me “danger danger” when I talked to men, I had met so many kind men through our weekly meetings and monthly trainings that helped to rewire my brain by telling me new information about what men really were. I was journaling one day and writing about a particularly kind man that helped me through some of my hard times in transitioning out of marriage, unemployment and a domestic violent situation with a previous roommate…
I re-read my journal entries of this kind man and reminded myself of his kindness and it helped me to rewire that neurological belief in my brain that men were dangerous. I realized through enough in person events and journaling my experiences that not all men are dangerous. It was just a few experiences that I learned to accept, grieve and let go. I’m not perfect at journaling and I don’t believe there really is a perfection. There are some men that are poopheads but for the most part, most people regardless of their sex, are beautifully kind human beings. How freeing it is to think and feel this way now that I’m free from that old belief.
What I love is that the process of writing consistently overtime helped me to conquer something that has held me back professionally. Now I’m able to confidently build friendships and business relationships with men, women, old and young. I love all people and writing in my journal helped me to open up more space to be kind to more people which to me is priceless.
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If you’re not currently journaling, I highly encourage you to start! You literally transform your brain! It’s amazeballs🙌! ⠀
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(The CEO of the wellness/skincare company really helped me to realize there are plenty of kind, healthy men to have friendships with. Thanks Jeff Olson for building such a positive healthy culture. Check out his gift to the world through happyacts.org, and the United Nations International Day of Happiness)
Strategy 3: Journaling Can Evoke Mindfulness
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I journal in the evening to wrap up the day. I include all 5 senses to relive positive experiences and or learn from life lessons (on those hard days). I want to get my body and mind to remember this experience when I review my journal entries I can relive it (mostly for spectacular days).
For tough days, I don’t always journal but when I do, I try to write it in a way that is more of like lessons I’ve learned from the bad experience. I make sure if there is a thought that is unkind about myself, I write it out as a ‘thought’ 💭 and reframe the thought with actual truth about myself right away to squelch its power. The act of writing out my thoughts in itself helps me to be present. It reminds me that I am here in this moment and I made it through whatever just happened.
Often times our thoughts are about our past or about our future. Writing physically in a journal helps to keep your mind present, mindful and as I’ve written about in a few blogs in the past, improves areas in your mind that release the healthy chemicals to produce relaxation and peaceful feelings.
I encourage you right now, wherever you’re at (as long as you’re not driving and reading 😂) get out your journal and write down a few things on your mind. Maybe also include when you want to start writing consistently (time of day, frequency, things like that).
Strategy 4: Journaling can help with your relationships! ⠀⠀
When I was younger, I really struggled with communicating. If I was stressed especially and had to deal with a disagreement, I would usually flee the scene or shut down. I’d go to my room and have some quiet space to think, which isn’t terrible but its also not healthy to leave the scene at work if you need to have a professional disagreement or in a romantic relationship if it makes your partner feel like you’re abandoning them. It didn’t help them or me at all. It was NOT productive. ⠀⠀
So I started ✍️ in a journal every night in higher stress times (like transitioning to college, new job, new home etc). My friend Tara actually suggested it when we were in college. She told me what she did when she was stressed out and in new transitions. She’s like a big sis to me and I gleaned on her every word.
So I tried journaling in higher transitions for myself. I noticed it started helping me communicate better with others as I formulated my thoughts first). It helped me to almost plan out a conversation before it would happen and plan to tackle multiple scenarios if they went a certain direction in the conversation.
Journaling definitely wasn’t perfect, but I noticed that it helped me to listen better when I did have conversations with people. It allowed me to let some of the emotions out of the conversations in heated disagreements. It allowed me to have more compassion for their side of the story. It also helped me to be aware when I was in a very toxic relationship how unhappy I was.
Journaling regularly helped me to formulate my plans of respectfully ending a romantic relationship with as much kindness and compassion as possible. I never ever want to hurt anyone, even those who have threatened my life. I have this love inside me that sees past people’s imperfections. Journaling helped me to realize that I am just as important as others and I need to have that same kindness and love towards myself. As silly as it may sound to you reading, I journal 📓 to make sure that I am still being kind to me (as a way to have some self reflection).
(This is my first self-published book I wrote during the year of my divorce, unexpected laid off from K-12 teaching, and a mysterious emptying of my bank account with out my approval from an ex. This book is a culmination of the affirmations I wrote for every area of my life I wanted to see improvement in during that difficult transition in my life. I included short stories of people that helped sculpt me into the woman I am today. I gave a free copy to my colleague Sayaka who helped co-lead Move Happy® in the psych hospital. You can get a copy in the store or DM me for a free digital download).
Strategy 5: Journaling Can Get You Noticed Professionally and Improve Your Resume/Curriculum Vitae’
I want to share with you what I’ve been able to accomplish in 3 short decades of life so far. This list is not all inclusive, just the high-lights from journaling’s impact on my life 😊
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✅ I’ve been able to perform in front of thousands of people (National Anthem at AAA stadiums, musical entertainment headlining in large restaurants and venues, YouTube video with my bro almost 100k views, and more…) ⠀
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✅I’ve been invited to present my own song and dance I choreographed from my “Project Asthma” Graduate School Project (self-created curriculum, video demos, lesson plans for cross-curricula 5th-12th grade levels in health/fitness, music, dance) at a Regional Conference for the AAHPERD (Now Called SHAPE America) Organization.
(This is my song called “Be Your Own” for Project Asthma that I was invited to present/teach at the AAHPRED Regional Conference in Montana summer off 2012. Sadly, didn’t get to go because I didn’t know I had to pay for travel, entrance, and hotel/food, otherwise I would have gone!)
✅ I have been published in the United States Army Wellness Magazine (MWR) twice during my stint in a pilot wellness-program at Joint Base Lewis-McChord
✅ I applied and accepted an opportunity to be a fellow for a summer curriculum intensive combining Ghandi ideas with multiple curriculum categories at Cal Poly State in Cali with teachers from all over the United States completely paid for (sadly had to turn it down because of the offer at JBLM in the bullet above was at the same time).
✅ I’ve written 15-20 songs that all started from my journals as ideas, emotions, for experiences I wanted to turn into music 🎵
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✅ I’m a self-published author, blogger, and curriculum writer (Move Happy Facilitator Program is a 16 week adult-focused curriculum designed to move participants towards their own happiness through journaling, group discussion, and workouts with minimal equipment, it includes video-demo for the workouts, participant journal with open-ended questions organized by weekly-focused content, questionnaires to measure pre/post success in happiness and fitness. It’s available in the store or you can DM me for a free digital download of the journal if your budget is tight).
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I owe a lot of this success to putting a pen to paper on a regular basis.⠀
Want To Work With Me?
I have a group VIP course (next course rolls out soon!!). If you want to work with me 1:1 and lead your own groups or plan to, I have 1 spot available starting May 1. It’s a commitment of 4 months and gets you everything from the group VIP plus 1:1 time weekly, and is 16 weeks instead of 6. There is an application process as I only work with people who truly want to make a positive impact in their community. Email me for interest here subject line “Elite Leadership VIP Course Interest”
I’m looking forward to connecting with you!
If you have any questions about working with me, don’t hesitate to reach out via email me!
Biggest takeaway from this is to start journaling even a little bit on a weekly or daily basis. I challenge you to start writing once a day for 21 days and report back to me how its impacted your mindset, community, and quality of life. For a free digital download of my Move Happy® Participant Journal go here.
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If you’ve found any value in what I’ve shared today, please share it with a friend or 5 that need to hear it too. Connect with me on all social media platforms and let’s make our world better together today.
PS: Don’t forget to tell someone you 💗 them today.
(Me singing the National Anthem at the Rainiers Game AAA Baseball in Tacoma, WA maybe 2011 or so)
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