Using your journal to help you with your business
Ever thought about journaling to help you with your business?
When people talk about journaling, it's common to automatically relate it to personal thoughts. The benefits to journaling for your mental health, healing past hurt or trauma and using it to explore your emotions are well known.
However, journaling is also a powerful tool to use when it comes to running a business or support your career progression. There are many benefits to using a journal for this, many that overlap with benefits when used for personal life too.
- Helps you to work through and overcome any negative beliefs, thoughts and mental blocks
- Helps raise your awareness on your thoughts, emotions and behaviours. The more you know about yourself, the more your confidence in yourself will grow
- Helps to inspire new ideas
- Helps you to sleep better – debrief each night and lose the chatter of what you need to do!
- Boosts motivation – as you see your progress, you will feel motivated to tackle the next part
- It prevents obstacles. As you learn about yourself, identify patterns and triggers you can start putting things in place to avoid unnecessary obstacles before they arise
- Helps to increase productivity – the more organised you feel, the more you’ll get done.
- Helps communication and build relationships. The more you know about yourself, the more your confidence grows and the easier you will find it to express your wants and needs. Being honest with yourself and others can also help to nurture relationships
- Helps to increase achievement and reaching your goals
These are just a few, but important ones to mention I think!
I find journaling about my business is vital and a non-negotiable part of my morning work routine. If I miss it out, then my day is far from organised and productive!
Whenever I start a new business journal, I always write my future business vision, with my goals and what I want from my business, right at the front where it's easy to find. Each morning I spend a couple of minutes reading it, to keep my ultimate aim at the forefront of my mind. It really motivates me for the day ahead and I can make sure my tasks for the day are clear on how they will help me get there. This helps to prevent me drifting and keep focused on my business journey, staying clear on what is important and useful.
Just 15 minutes in the morning and my motivation is boosted, my tasks are clear for the day and productivity rises!
Setting out clear intentions for the day not only gives you clarity, but you'll probably find you get more done in less time too - work smarter not harder!
How are you with dealing with procrastination? Something that massively impacts productivity levels!
Keeping your journal near you during the day may help you to reduce procrastination. For me, whenever I find myself avoiding a task (or I've fallen down a random rabbit hole for no reason) I grab my journal and write it out which helps me to get back to the task. Try it! Here are a couple of prompts that may help:
What am I avoiding by not completing this task?
How will completing this task help me grow my business? How much do I want this growth
What do I need to do to complete this task?
Once you've uncovered the cause of your procrastination it is much easier to move past it. I also find the process of a few minutes writing about it normally breaks the faffing and gets me refocused - not an easy thing to do with my ADHD brain!
Want to learn more about you?
You are your business and your business is you, so use your journal to raise your self-awareness on your beliefs, thoughts and behaviours surrounding your business. Learning how you approach and react to people, situations and general business "stuff and things" and how this impacts your business is such important information that is worth its weight in gold!
Knowledge is power and knowing exactly what you want for your business, and who you are as a business owner, will boost your confidence, growth and move you forward in ways you didn't envision.
This knowledge is already in us, sometimes we need to unlock it though as it's been hidden away over the years for various reasons. Reflecting on your writing will highlight any recurring patterns or themes. It will show you any unhelpful beliefs or thoughts that are holding you back. You will be able to see your progress, or lack of progress and where you need to focus your attention. From here, you can decide what to do about it - let anything continue to hold you back or do something about it.
Hate marketing but not sure why? Hate sales and want to work out the best way to make them without it feeling icky? Is there another area of business you avoid but don't know why? Where do you views on these areas come from? All this and more you can discover about yourself in your business journal.
The more you understand about yourself, the more you understand and are clear on your wants and needs for your business, the more your confidence will grow - leading ultimately to your business growing.
Use your journal to write honestly and freely about all areas of your business. Use it to recognise your strengths, quieten negative and unhelpful beliefs whilst boosting your confidence feeding those incredible positive beliefs you know to be true!
Write your business story. Write your way to greater knowledge, confidence and business success!
Write your ultimate vision for your business. Be as detailed as you can!
What do you need to do to make that vision a reality?
How will your tasks for the day help you create your business vision?
How acceptable is it, to you, if you don't achieve your tasks for the day? How will this impact moving your business forward?
What sort of business owner do you want to be?
Who do you need to be to make your business the success you know it can be?
Would you like more support with using your business journal to help you raise your self-awareness to a level my members have described as mind-blowing? Check out The Journal Vibe Business Club!
