Journalling is one of the most powerful things we can do to raise awareness, create perspective and explore issues that are not dominated by random thought. The process of wrtiting helps us organise our thoughts as we tend to write slower than we think. Most of us at some point have kept a diary or written a story (maybe at school) about something we have done. So having done this before you will be faniliar with the act but maybe not why we should do it now as leaders.
At ilead we encourage journalling after every module to help reflect on what we have discovered, document the actions we will take, why we take those actions, what we will get as a result and help reinforce the new habits, behaviours and thinking we want to develop. Learning a new skill takes time and practice acknowledging our progress in our journal helps reinforce the habit.
The goal of journaling is to become aware of yourself, your thoughts and feelings, and that is all.
You must persist for at least three weeks before you will start to see any benefit, but if you do this, you will see results.
GETTING STARTED
Begin by just asking – what is on my mind. And just put your pen on the paper and let it flow.
Write sentences, and in the present tense. In other words write as you would talk. Most of us do not talk in bullet points or shorthand, so try and avoid that.
Topic suggestions:
- CREATIVITY: How can you grow the ideas you have written about for your future opportunity? What would this new opportunity mean for you and your family? What will you be doing in the world that is different from other leaders? What will you need to develop further in terms of your behaviours/instincts to be effective in this role? How are you developing your creativity to enable you to think differently? What can you do creatively today to begin to shape this?
- CURIOSITY: What dominates your focus at work? What is the effect of that on your work? What are the tensions and conflicts that you are currently experiencing at work? Who causes them and how? What can you do to change that? How curious are you really? What are you doing to encourage that curiosity at work?
- AWARENESS: What did you notice about members of your lead team or peer group today? What did you learn about them? What did you notice in yourself? What feelings or emotions did you experience? What was the impact of this?
- WISDOM: How wise are you? How wise do you feel? What are you doing today that will demonstrate your wisdom? What is the wisest thing you have ever done professionally? What made that decision/action wise? When and how did you know? What criteria did you use to judge its merits?
Here are some other thought starters that will help:
- Have a conversation with someone on your team and notice what occurs. After the conversation is over, go to your diary and explore what happened.
- Take something you have read recently and reflect on it. What does it mean for you? What thoughts does it bring up? What is your interpretation?
- Think about a particular issue you are mulling over. Pose the question in your journal and then just begin writing about it.
- Take something you are looking forward to, and write about that. It may be a new product/service launch, a new person joining the team, some learning that is coming. Something personal – a holiday, a new home, an anniversary.
- Think about a role model who you really admire and write about their traits and behaviours. Think about how this applies to you.
- Take a topic that is worrying you. Examine it, as if it is not yours. Become detached from it.
- If you are into sport – take a topic like the America’s Cup, FA Cup, Bledisloe Cup, the Masters….. and write about what you notice – the team, the races, the boats, the atmosphere, the results, the feelings. Then take this a step further and apply it to your current situation – team, organisation, people etc.
The goal of journaling is to become aware of yourself, your thoughts and feelings, and that is all.
You must persist for at least three weeks before you will start to see any benefit, but if you do this, you will see results.
To write a journal entry:
- Click on the Add an Entry button to the left, or select Add an Entry under My Journal in the main site navigation.
- Start filling in the blanks: enter your journal title in the upper field, and enter your journal body content in the main post editing box below it.
- You can format your text using the buttons or drop down menus above the area where you write your body content. Click on the Add Media button to add an image or a video. You’ll find that the formatting is very similar to Microsoft Word!
- When you are ready, click Publish.
