Improve Your Life: 21 Strategies That Will Make The Difference

By Craig Collinson

“Self-help’s greatest hits! Personal development for the lazy. Craig has done the hard work, so you don’t have to.”

Andrew Cope – Author – Being Brilliant

Improve Your Life! 21 strategies that will make the difference is packed full of practical tips and techniques that have all been learn

• Language: English
• Publisher: FCM Publishing
• Release date: Mar 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9780995629653

Book preview

If you're serious about becoming a wealthy, powerful, sophisticated, healthy, influential, cultured and unique individual, keep a journal. Don't trust your memory. When you listen to something valuable, write it down. When you come across something important, write it down.

(Jim Rohn)

If you already keep a journal it's my hope that you will pick up a new idea or two that you can either adopt or adapt. If you do not as yet keep a journal then I very much hope that these next few pages will inspire you to do just that. This strategy will explore what a journal is, highlight some of the many benefits of journaling, explain how to get the best from your journal, offer suggestions as to content and examine two simple methods for the effective organisation of your data.

WHAT IS A JOURNAL?

Simply put, a journal is an empty book that you are going to fill with valuable information.

I view my journal as a friend to whom I can say whatever I want, however I choose, whenever I wish and for as long as I like! My friend will not judge, criticise or question me as a result of anything I tell them, regardless of what it is.

The most important rule is there are no rules! Your journal is a safe space for you to be yourself with no need for any pretence, just as you really are — warts and all. Your journal is whatever you want it to be, a place for reflection, recording memories, releasing anxieties, working through problems, collating material, clarifying thoughts, developing goals, exploring emotions, posing questions, ranting, venting or exploding on the page. Your journal can be all these things and more. It's your opportunity to allow your thoughts and emotions to roam freely over the page without restriction.

If a diary is a factual record of the events of your day then a journal is about your thinking, emotions, behaviours, reactions and perception about that day.

The style and size can be whatever works for you, your needs and your budget. Whether you choose lined or blank pages, an inexpensive note book or an executive leather bound version, it is your choice alone. As long as your journal feels right to you then you will be more likely to use it and if it doesn't you won't.

It's your book and whilst there are no rules that you have to follow, there are some really useful guidelines to help you get the best from your journal. It's about trial and error, experimentation and flexibility in line with your needs and preferences. I think you should always view your journal as a work in progress.

MAKING THE MOST OF YOUR JOURNAL

Here are a few of the basics that I've learned from others and discovered for myself over the years:

Keeping a journal does require discipline. It's an easy thing to do, so it follows that it's equally easy not to bother. It should be an enjoyable process and should never become a chore, because if it does you will stop doing it. That's guaranteed!

It might suit you to carry your journal with you at all times or it may be that you set aside 10 minutes every day, for example either in the morning or the evening. You may find it more useful to write at the same time each day or you may not — experiment until you discover the routine and rhythm that suits you.

All the accepted norms of good quality writing are unimportant for the purposes of your journal. Things like neatness, spelling, grammar and punctuation are not the priority unless you choose to make them important. In terms of your journal even plagiarism is acceptable. If it helps, remind yourself that to steal from one person is plagiarism, to steal from many is just research!

Your journal is private and confidential — for your eyes only. No one but you is ever going to see the contents unless you decide to share it. This means that you can allow yourself to write with absolute honesty, openness and freedom. As you get into the journaling habit you will appreciate the importance of this much more.

WHY BOTHER?

What's the point? How do I benefit from keeping a journal? These are really good questions to ask and ones I wanted answered. I hope that the following points convince you of some of the many potential benefits:

Helps you to clarify your thoughts and feelings

When you are facing chaotic thoughts or uncertain emotions it's amazing how quickly the fog can begin to clear and things can start to fall into place by writing about them. For me, whenever life throws confusion my way I find great benefit in writing about it and, in my experience, it often only takes five minutes of writing for things to start making sense again.

Helps you to know yourself better

Now whilst you may not initially like everything you learn about yourself, greater self-awareness is usually to be expected as a result of keeping a journal. Just a few of the things that you will gather evidence for will probably include:

your strengths and weaknesses;

key values and drivers;

what you feel strongly about;

what makes you angry or happy;

what you believe about the world;

who you enjoy spending time with and who you don't;

what behaviours get the best and worst reactions from other people;

what makes you proud of yourself and what doesn't.

If you decide to keep a journal you will get to know things about yourself that you didn't know before and that's got to be valuable for anyone.

Helps you to deal with what's happening now

After you have been writing in your journal for a while there's a good chance that themes will keep recurring. The more you write about these situations, challenges, behaviours, people or whatever else it may be, the more data you will collect. When you then review your material it has the potential to remind you of what happened previously in terms of anything that you tried, what worked and what didn't. The information about your past experiences will be invaluable in helping you to deal effectively with the present.

Helps you to remember what inspired you

When you see or hear something that really inspires you then the best place to capture it is in your journal, then you will have it forever. It could be a line from a movie, a paragraph in a book, the lyrics of a song or an overheard comment. Whatever it was, if it had the power to affect you, put it in your journal so that it can inspire you for the rest of your life.

Helps you to develop discipline

When you commit to set aside regular time to write in your journal you are also developing your discipline muscle. Once you have strengthened your discipline and made journaling a habit this then has the potential to positively affect other aspects of your life. Strong discipline is required to establish good habits in, for example, learning, exercise, healthy eating or meditation. Once you have developed your discipline muscle there's no knowing how that will pay you back over the course of your lifetime.

Helps you to reduce stress

Writing about the experiences of your stress, their causes or symptoms, can go a long way to alleviate the stressful feelings themselves. By using your journal to write about your stress you are taking the overwhelming thoughts out of your head and moving them onto the paper. This can then help you to bring about a much calmer and more resourceful state, enabling you to see things in a much more positive perspective.

Helps you to deal more effectively with problems

Writing in your journal engages both sides of your brain which can be really useful when attempting to confront and solve a problem. Writing in detail about the problem engages the left side of the brain, which is the analytical part. This in turn frees up the right side of the brain, the creative part, so it can get busy producing possible solutions which can then pop into to your head as if 'out of the blue'.

Helps you to improve relationships

Writing about disagreements, conflicts, arguments and misunderstandings that you might be experiencing gives you the chance to vent your feelings on paper, whilst at the same time seeing things from another angle. If you choose to use your journal to better understand people's potential motives you will find it enables you to think about their perspectives, comments and actions differently. This could then lead to you either initiating potential resolutions or at least to be more open to any of their ideas about how your relationships could be improved.

Helps you to achieve your goals

Any more than you could begin to build a house without a finished blueprint, likewise you can't realise a dream without the plan to make it happen. Journals are a brilliant way to write about the life of your dreams and then to develop the goals you need to work towards in order that you have your dreams come true. Writing about your dreams and goals in detail will help to excite you initially and then motivate you to work towards your plan by taking the all-important consistent actions to achieve your goals.

Helps you to boost your self-confidence

If you decide to even just sometimes write about your positive experiences, successes, achievements or triumphs, you will massively impact on, and benefit from, your level of self-confidence. The way that you see yourself through the constructive feedback you are providing will be priceless to read back whenever self-doubt, negative self-talk or fear come knocking on your door. Your journal will offer you the factual evidence to remind you of the positives and help you to boost your self-confidence just when it's needed most.

Helps you to remember how far you've come

If life was a giant running track then sometimes you can be so far behind that you could mistakenly believe that you are in front! Keeping a journal is a great way to capture honestly, where you were, where you are now and where you want to get to in your life. Your journal can remind you of the steps and sometimes